Inspired by the famous Wellesley Cookie Exchange and our November/December 2018 feature, Cookie Swap, we offer our best advice for hosting a modern holiday cookie swap, including a planning guide, cookie recipes, and a menu of refreshments to serve your guests before the swapping begins.
Psst! You can find recipes for the mouthwatering cookies pictured here at the end of this post… Photo Credit : Mark Fleming
How to Host a Holiday Cookie Swap
Start Small and Plan Well
Begin with a group of five to 10 friends who enjoy baking. Send out invitations three to four weeks before the event, and try to plan the exchange within two weeks of Christmas, so that the cookies will still be fresh during the final lead-up to the holiday. Consider a midafternoon start time to avoid conflicts with other holiday parties (and to simplify your menu planning).
Send Out Easy Invites
Handwritten invitations are lovely, but you should know that online invitation sites like Evite, Paperless Post, and Punchbowl have templates specifically designed for holiday cookie swap parties. (Guests can even note which cookies they plan to bring, which is a great way to avoid repeats.)
Organize the Baking
Ask guests to bring cookies that don’t need refrigeration after baking. As a rule of thumb, you’ll need six to 12 cookies per guest, plus an additional dozen for sampling during the party. Finally, ask everyone to bring their own serving platters, and to email you their recipe in advance of the party.
These sour cream sugar cookie trees are sweet, fun, and easy to transport. Photo Credit : Mark Fleming
Plan the Cookie Setup
At a craft store, buy several large decorative to-go boxes or reusable cookie tins per guest. Clear off a large table for the exchange, and create a placecard label for each type of cookie. Create a packing station with boxes or tins, ribbon, scissors, and waxed paper (to place between layers) near the cookie display.
Plan the Cookie Swap Menu
Depending on the time of day, you should have coffee and tea, a cocktail and soft drinks, and light savory bites or a full meal to balance out all the sweets. See our perfect holiday party menu below.
Enjoy the Party
Allow time for sampling and snacking, then invite everyone to assemble their cookie collections.
Share the Recipes
Once you’ve collected all the recipes, print them out to hand out at the party or email them to your guests right after.
What to Serve | The Perfect Holiday Cookie Swap Menu
An ideal holiday cookie swap menu should feel festive but not heavy — there will be plenty of indulging with the cookie course! To plan this menu, we looked for a warming cocktail, a vegetable-driven starter and sides, and a bright chicken main dish that packs a lot of flavor with very little fat.
What to Bake | Recommended Holiday Cookie Swap Recipes
The best holiday cookie swap recipes are, first and foremost, delicious. But they should also have a reasonably long shelf life and be easy to transport. Remember, you’ll need six to 12 cookies per guest, plus an additional dozen for sampling during the party.
This post was first published in 2018 and has been updated.
Amy Traverso
Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee magazine and co-host of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with WGBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.
