Hi Robin

Your website has inspired me once again to host my 2nd Annual Cookie Exchange. The exchange was on Saturday, December 8th from 1 to 4 pm. It all started back in October when I sent “Save the Date” magnets for the exchange. Then came the invitation mailed to everyone and then an E-Vite as well. My group loves the E-vite so that they can read everyone’s responses. There were 16 of us in attendance this year. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of all of this year. I was so involved in the games I completely forgot until my mom mentioned it to me at the end of the day. What a bummer but there is always next year.

I greeted everyone with a bell necklace and with the bell necklace on no one would be allowed to say cookie or they would get their necklace taken away. This created a competition. It will be back next year. A prize was given to the person with the most necklaces on.

We played the left, right game and this year I made sure everyone was given a box with ornaments inside. That way everyone walked away with at least one prize. To make it different one special box had an additional coffee gift card inside. Favors this year consisted of a holiday pin and a holiday magnetic pad for the refrigerator. Everyone was also given a recipe book which had all the cookie recipes in it.

I wanted everyone to be real festive this year, so I introduced door prizes this year to the event. In my invitation I listed items you needed to wear to get tickets. Example if you had on a holiday pin you got 2 tickets, wearing a Santa hat got you 5 tickets and so on. Door prizes ranged from candle sets, wine and Christmas wine glasses, Christmas platter, etc. Everyone came real festive by doing this. Plus everyone loves winning prizes. We did have one bah humbug though….she got a prize of candy coal!

The food spread this year consisted of a veggie platter, cheese platter, shrimp cocktail, mini reuben’s, mini quiches, pigs in a blanket, baked brie with caramelized onions, apricot jam and pinoli nuts (YUMMY), Roasted Garlic bulbs with blue cheese, Goat cheese spread, mini pinwheel sandwiches, and foccacia squares filled with eggplant, mozzarella, roasted peppers, and arugula. Dessert was gingerbread trifle, white and milk chocolate fudge wreaths, cream puffs, and a fruit platter. For cocktails I had a cranberry punch made with champagne, Bloody Mary’s, and Kahlua & cream.

Everyone was asked to bake 8 dozen cookies and pre package them in sets of 6. I asked everyone to sit in a circle and handed out Christmas themed shopping bags to everyone with their names on it so they all had something to put their cookies in. Everyone was then asked to say a story why they decided to bake their cookie. The story was told while their cookies were being passed around to everyone. It worked out real well for us.

Cookies this year where Anise cookies, Cherry Cookies, Chocolate Crinkles, Double Chocolate Cherry Thumbprints, Italian Chocolate Spice Cookies, Linzer Thumbprints, Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Peanut butter Christmas Mice, Pistachio Lemon Drops, Butterscotch Cookies, Shortbread Cookies, Swirled Holiday Snowball Cookies, Thumbprint Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, and Bakery Bought Gingerbread Men.

I had prizes for best/most outrageous outfit, nicest packaging of cookies, best story about the cookies, cookies that were the most time consuming to prepare, 1st person to RSVP, 1st person to arrive at the party, and for the procrastinators’ in my group I needed to send an email stated who ever replied to my email the fastest with their cookie and recipe would win a prize.

Attached are some pictures. My sister, niece and my sister’s friend came as Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future. Real cute! Also is a picture of the cookie that took the most work, they were the Peanut Butter Mice. There is also a picture of some of the ladies in a circle listening to everyone’s cookie stories.

Thanks again Robin for this website. It is so helpful.

I hope you and your family have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Allyson Modula,
Parsippany, NJ