Robin,

This was our about my 18th cookie exchange (I've lost count!). We had about 20 ladies who baked and participated in the exchange and 4 ladies who came just for the fun and fellowship.

Each lady makes a package of 4 cookies for each participant, brings an extra dozen cookies for our food table and leaves one cookie in front of their display for the judging.

I award 3 prizes: the "Martha Stewart Award" for the best cookie display; the "Betty Crocker Award" for the cookie that looks like it tastes the best (since we don't taste them) and the "Sandra Lee Award" for the most creative cookie recipe.

I found baker-man nutcrackers who were holding a baking sheet of cookies for the prizes.

While the ladies walk around and judge the cookies, we play a few games.

Our theme this year was snowmen. I gave a prize for the person wearing the most snowmen and for the person who found the most snowmen around the room, including on the snowman Christmas tree.

I collect everyone's recipes ahead of time and make a booklet for each person to take home. I also made "snowman soup" and covered a chocolate candy bar in white paper and painted a snowman face on it for each lady.

Each year every lady brings a "gently used" ornament and we use them for a Chinese gift exchange. We get some very nice ones, some very old ones and some very ugly ones. Other than the cookies, it's always the best part of the evening.

I enjoy looking at the pictures on your website to get ideas for the next year. There are a lot of creative cookie exchangers out there!!