Christmas Sugar Cookies

One of our family's favorite things to do at Christmas is bake (and decorate!) cookies together. Both my husband, Whit, and I grew up baking cookies with our moms, and now we get to pass on the tradition to our kiddos!

We are both practical, let's-just-get-it-done type of people, so we tried making sugar cookies from a mix. They were... ok? We used the Betty Crocker mix, but it wasn't easy to roll and cut the shapes for some reason. Maybe we did something wrong or maybe that's just how that dough is like. Either way, we were not too impressed, so this week we decided to make some cookies from scratch!

First, we googled some recipes and made sure we had all the ingredients - they're pretty basic items. Once we were ready to make the cookies, we did what any techy family would do - use our Google Home Hub to follow the recipe! It was our first time using the Hub for a recipe, and it was wonderful! It tells you the recipe in easy step by step - both on the screen and spoken. We really enjoyed using the Home Hub, and the cookies turned out great too!

The kiddos enjoyed helping mix the ingredients, cut of the cookies with Christmas-shaped cutters, and decorate the cookies. Their favorite part was definitely eating them, of course! Haha. They also enjoyed using their new aprons. They both looked really cute wearing them, and I liked that they didn't get their clothes dirty! Haha. You can get them on Amazon here.

Here's the recipe we ended up using from Good Housekeeping:

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

1 c. butter, softened
1 c. sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. almond extract
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Instructions

In large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. In separate large bowl, with mixer at low speed, beat butter and sugar until blended. Increase speed to high; beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce speed to low; beat in eggs, almond extract, and vanilla extract until mixed, then beat in flour mixture just until blended, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces; flatten each piece into a disk. Wrap each disk with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Remove dough from refrigerator. Place dough disk between two sheets of parchment paper, roll dough until 1/8-inch thick. With floured 3-inch to 4-inch cookie cutters, cut dough into as many cookies as possible; reserve trimmings. Place cookies, 1 inch apart, on two ungreased large cookie sheets.

Bake until edges are golden, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire rack to cool. Repeat with remaining dough.

Let cookies cool. Decorate as desired.

That's it! They were easy and they taste really yummy!

Do you enjoy making cookies during the holidays as well?