Hello Robin!

My 8th Annual Cookie Exchange Party was on Saturday, December 13th, 2008 at 11 AM. There were 15 of us this year and we enjoyed home-made cinnamon rolls, cranberry-pecan coffee cake, fruit, cheese and crackers, quiche, heart-shaped waffles with various syrups and toppings as well as egg nog, orange juice, coffee, sparkling cider, and Christmas punch before we took a group picture and conducted our cookie swap.

This year's cookies included: Orange Balls, Peanut Butter Balls, Christmas Trees (cookie press), Lemon Cookies, Coconut Snowball Crisps, Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk, Chocolate Billionaires, Gingerbread Men, Cake Balls, Buckeye Bars, Chocolate Kiss Peanut Butter Cookies, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Double Chocolate Caramel Bars.

After the exchange we played the left/right ornament game (with this year's winning entry from your contest) and when I was done reading the story everyone ended up with their own ornament! We all had a good laugh and decided to pass it one person to the left and call it good. (NOTE: apparently it doesn't work with an even number of people!)

Everyone left with their party favors: a gingerbread lip gloss and gingerbread soap and the party was cleaned up and over by 2 PM. The party felt like it went really fast this year -- in fact I was so busy running around that I had to enlist my husband to fill my exchange platter with cookies -- which meant that I missed out on the fun of seeing all of the full platters of cookies (good thing I took some pictures -- I'm the one in the front row with long hair and red top)!

I would like to acknowledge the good helpers I had this year (cutting up fruit; washing dishes; bringing the egg nog, sparking cider, and cheese and crackers) which made things go more smoothly. Thanks for all of your help gals!

It's a lot of work having a Cookie Exchange but it's so worth it! Thanks for your newsletter and "what you should be doing now" list which helps keep me on track at such a busy time of year. I look forward to seeing pictures and hearing how everyone else's parties went this year -- thanks for your wonderful web site Robin!

Merry Christmas!

Christine Harpel, Fort Collins, CO

PDF files of my CE invitation  1, 2