But this year, I resolved to be a contender. I would start early, and even find out which cookbook Diane was using. I would find the perfect cookie that would win votes!
This Christmas cookie exchange began in 1993 in Willingboro, when about 10 of us - sisters, mothers, in-laws and cousins - baked our favorite cookies. We made little stained-glass cookies with crushed Life Savers, twists of candy canes, and heavily spiked rum balls.
We now laugh about the early days: the burnt peanut butter cookies someone brought one year (we all pretended we could not see their little blackened bottoms); the slice-and-bake scandal another year; and the time someone stopped at a bakery on the way over and ditched the store box. (We know home-baked when we taste it!)
But through the years, and especially since my brother's family moved two counties south to their big new house in Mickleton, the cookies have gotten prettier and prettier and just plain cute.
Four weeks before the party, I began to think of my 2007 cookie - keeping in mind "The Rules," which are absolute: "Bake 3 dozen of your favorite cookie. Chocolate chip, oatmeal and peanut butter cookies are on the 'Do Not Bake list,' " says the invite.
My search took me straight to the Inquirer's food editor for her holiday cookie books. I pored over Martha Stewart - nope, her chocolate pepper cookies won't stand up to those pretzel-eared deer; Joy of Cooking Christmas Cookies; Betty Crocker (the book I cleverly found out Diane used in 2005 and 2006); Family Circle and something called Cookie Craft, with recipes that looked like a whole bunch of sugar cookies.
My sister in California sent me a Web site. I get the 12 Days of Cookies e-mail from the Food Network. Nope, the winner is not here; no one wants a sesame-ring cookie, and besides I'm still hot with them for canceling Emeril.
