Cookie Exchange 2007

One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is hosting a cookie exchange for some of my cousins. There were 20 people at this years cookie exchange. Each person brought 36 cookies for a total of at least 468 cookies....wow that's a lot of yummy cookies.


Jake came down to my house on Friday night to help me bake caramel chocolate bars then he traded places with Kaycie and she helped me finish up the last of the decorating and cookies exchange preparations. Kaycie worked so hard she was up until 2 am putting together the holiday village, making the favors (paperwhite bulbs in glasses from Ikea with red, white and green stones), making the ballots, putting together the prizes and creating her own guessing game. She finally went to bed and I made my second type of cookies, Cheesecake Thumbprints from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook page 112. These cookies were easy, had only a few basic ingredients, and were very yummy (even though I only got to eat one I really liked them). I finally went to bed around 3 am.
We got up the next day and went to McDonalds for a very large Diet Coke (it was going to be a day for lots of caffeine) and breakfast. We came home and finished up all of the last little details.



Kaycie set up the cheese tray and I finished up the Hor d'overes. The cheese and Hors d'Oeuvres were both from Williams Sonoma. The cheese was good but I don't think it was as good as the cheese from last year that I got from Liberty Heights Fresh in SLC. The Hors D'Oeuvres were good I really loved the Truffled Mushroom Risotto Purses.....yumm.
The snow started falling as everyone arrived it was almost like we had planned for the snow to be falling outside while we were inside eating cookies. We spent some time visiting and snacking on the cheese and hors d'Oeuvres and Kaycie had everyone enter her ornament guessing contest.



Then we started sampling the cookies and creating trays and boxes that were taken into the wrapping table to be cellophaned and ribboned.



Then the voting began the results are-----
Kaycies Ornament Guessing Contest-Taylor Johnson guessed 56 and there were 64
Cutest Recipe Card--Tiffany Bringhurst Wow these were cute it must have taken hours to create these cards.
Most Creative Ingredient--Joy Bunker used candy cane on the top of rice crispy treats
Best Overall--Breanne Bringhurst made Hello Dollies. There were tons of fantastic yummy cookies.
Christy gave me this super cute framed snowman (which she made by the way) as a hostess gift.



Everyone gathered up their goodies and left and Kaycie and I passed out on the couch

......not for long though. Just before the cookie exchange Joy called and asked me if I wanted to go Jacob Bunkers holiday choir program. So kaycie and I drove to Spanish Fork and went to the program. It was fantastic. It was a dinner program and they had the tables set up in the center and they had four stages set up around the tables. It was great. Who would have known there were so many talented kids in Spanish Fork?