Christmas Cookie Extravaganza

I do it every year.

I swear never to do it again every year.

Repeat Sentence No. 1.

When I was little, my grandmother made Christmas cookies. She had a three-tiered tray on which she served them, and I always marveled at all the different kinds. Italian anise shortbread, sugar, chocolate chip, fudge ... and then I moved away, and the multi-cookie noshing stopped.

Three years ago, I realized something.

I can bake.

Moreover, I am a good baker.

So I pored over cookbooks and cookie blogs, looking for recipes to try out. I think my first year looked like this:

Sugar cookies
Cranberry-white-chocolate cookies
Pecan pie cookies
Italian anise cookies

Last year, I decided to kick it up a notch. I went for:
Cranberry white-chocolate cookies
Pecan pie cookies
Italian anise cookies
Chocolate chip cookies
Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

It takes two days to bake all of them, because I use them for Christmas gift for coworkers for both me and the hubs. That entails multiple batches, strategic bagging and storing, and a LOT of paper bags and tissue paper.

I wash untold number of dishes during this extravaganza, and I always regret that at no point in the previous year did I break down and buy the chef's kitchen mat that I always covet ... during Christmas Cookie Extravaganza.

But now Christmas is near. It's about the time of year that I start planning the CCE.

"No," I told myself last week. "Absolutely not. It is exhausting, and nobody needs those cookies this year."

After all, my work has organized its first Secret Santa exchange.

But yesterday, a thought pinged my cookie-shaped brain.

"Mmmm, I could go for a iced sugar cookie right about now."

And today, another one came through.

"We will be Home Alone on Christmas. Wouldn't it be great to have platters of all kinds of Christmas cookies?"

That reminded me that a co-worker gave me this suggestion, if I were to be her Secret Santa: "Don't buy me anything. Just make me more of those Red Velvet Whoopie Pies. That's all I want for Christmas."

I know that the pings are going to come more frequently, and the voices will get louder.

Already I'm mulling over my Dream Team of cookies this year: Cranberry white-chocolate, pecan pie, iced sugar and Italian anise. I know the hubs wolfed down a whole tray of the too-sweet-for-even-me whoopie pies last year.

And it would be very grinch-like not to bring some into the office, right?

These cookies freeze, right?

I'm gaining 10 pounds this month, right?