My family makes pusharatas. It’s a Croatian dessert, and the best way to describe it is that it’s similar to a donut hole. It has all sorts of yummy extras in the batter. It has a glaze just like a donut hole. My family only makes them for Christmas, so they’re a special treat every year. Yay for the holiday season!

My mom’s cinnamon rolls! She makes them every year on Christmas morning.

It isn’t Christmas without my Moms thumbprint cookies with homemade strawberry jam from the summer. They are so delicious!!!

In my family, the tradition is the italian cookies we make, just like my grandmother made. Now that I am married, my husband and I get our hands dirty together making them each year!

Chocolate crinkle cookies are a must in our family for Christmas. They aren’t exactly a Christmas cookie, but we only make them during the Christmas season so it makes them extra special to us!

Spinach Dip! A Must Have before the big dinner….doesn’t really “go”…but my kids LOVE IT! Jingle!

Christmas for me has always included frosted sugar cookies…it is just not Christmas morning without eating the leftover cookies from Santa’s plate. Growing up my mom would make sugar cookie and gingerbread cookie dough each year on the 23rd of December and we would decorate the cookies on Christmas eve day. Lots of frosting, lots of coloured sugar and tons of M&M’s for decorating cookies. Such fun!!

It is a tradition that I have started with my children and they will tell you that the sugar cookies are the best part of any holiday!!

My husbands family always has Christmas morning breakfast that is filled with decadent food. Gingerbread waffles with cinnamon cream, baked stuffed french toast, fruit salad, fresh juices, cranberry muffins, fresh dates and then the egg pan (with my mother in law making any type of egg you desire), as well as bacon and sausage. Everyone in expected in their new Christmas pyjamas and food is not available until the stockings are opened. Christmas morning breakfast is almost better than Christmas dinner!!

Wishing everyone a yummy holiday!!

Peppermint Pie with a chocolate crust! I’m not usually a fan of peppermint but I make this pie every year. It’s a tradition from my childhood and my family loves it.

Traditional for me is pound cake with candied cherries, dates and pecans added. Some years I have made dozens of varying sizes. So far this year, I have made not a single one!

Thanks and Merry Christmas!

Tamales. Every year my aunt makes a batch of tamales that lasts the family a whole year. There is just so much work that goes into them, and each year I help my aunt construct them.

Merry Christmas!

I love to bake white chocolate dipped ginger cookies every year! I only make them at Christmas and seeing the satisfaction of the recipients eyes is worth it every time!

Peppermint bark is our tradition! We make it every year and share with friends and family.

We have a few – making the molassas cookies my grandmother made, cranberry jello and pistashio marshmallow salad with ham dinner on Christmas Eve, and homemmade cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning with my husband’s side of the family.

Cool giveaway! I just posted about my annual Cranberry-Pecan Bars!

My sister and I make chocolate covered pretzels and buckeyes every year. It’s a nice tradition because she lives in another city so we don’t see each other as often as we’d like. So we make a day out of it – drink wine, make a mess, play Christmas music, and enjoy the company!

I make and decorate sugar cookies with my three kids. We’ve been doing this since they were toddlers and they still ask to do it every year (and they’re teenagers!).

My mom has always made no-bake cookies for Christmas…this year I guess I am making them for her.

Oyster Stew!

My family tradition is frosted cutout cookies. My dad is actually the best baker in our family, and every year he tries to perfect the cookie beyond last year’s success. This year I made my own and used your royal icing recipe. My dad looked at them and said that there was no way that I could have made those, because the frosting looked too perfect! No matter who is making them or how it is done, these cookies are always my favorite during the holidays!

We make a duck every Christmas- a delicious tradition!

Cinnamon Rolls X’mas morning is our tradition!! Happy Holidays!

Candy cane cookies! These are my MIL and we look forward to them every single year. Delicious :)

There are too many to list them all but we make gingerbread houses and have the kids invited friends over. This year I made 26… The kids have such a wonderful time…

Our holiday tradition is monkey bread on Christmas morning. I dont ever remember a Christmas without it. I learned to make it with my mom when I was about 10, even before that I would roll the biscuits in cinnamon and sugar. Last year was my first Christmas that I spent away from my parents house, but I made monkey bread for my husband.

In my family (and when I say “family” I mean my new family with my husband) I have made it a tradition to try something new each year. Somehow I always go back to my grandmother’s apple pie. I blogged it, too, and it has to be one of my better pictures. I love it!

Since marrying my husband, adding buckeyes to our cookie tray has become a tradition. His grandmother always included them and since we moved from Ohio they have become even more of a special treat! Thanks for hosting the giveaway – great selection!

Annie–you blog is one of my favorite. It’s always so well written with great pictures. My mom always makes her cranberry scones on Christmas morning. They are absolutely wonderful!

I have 2 small kids who are just starting to create our own traditions. My mother died a few years ago so I don’t have a lot of her recipes which she did not write down. This year I am experimenting to find the perfect sugar cookie and frosting for the kids to use. It is fun to see the different kinds of frostings and the effects they create. I am sure I can find something perfect!
On Christmas Eve we always have tapas. Fun, easy, and my favorite kind of dinner!

For me it’s not really just one food, but rather, Christmas morning breakfast. My mom make a delectable spread with great breakfast food and we eat it before we open presents. I have also started a new tradition of making homemade marshmallows that we enjoy as well.

Pumpkin roll and cheeseball are holiday foods for my family. Plus I love that I can make them all in one day and both freeze well. The tradition I am planning on starting is homemade cinamon rolls on Christmas Morning.

Our family tradition is to make pineapple empanadas that are rolled in cinnamon and sugar straight out of the oven. They are a labor of pain and have always involved the entire families help so i have tons of found memories.

Nothing says holiday like my mom’s homemade caramels.

My favorite tradition as a child was opening my present from my grandparents on Christmas Eve. They always gave all the grandkids a new set of PJ’s to wear to bed Christmas Eve.

Our holiday tradition is a lamb and pasticio (Greek lasagna) for dinner. no other meat is allowed and we always have to have pasticio. when my grandmother passes (sometime after another 20yrs, she ain’t going anywhere!!), that will continue to be my tradition b/c xmas wouldn’t be the same w/ out it.

Apple Salad is a traditional holiday food in my family. Although many people on my mom’s side of the family look at us crazy when we bring it, the rest of us love it.

Inside-Out Oreos a.k.a. Oreo truffles have become a holiday tradition for my family… I am always expected to bring them :)

For as long as I can remember, we have always had spaghetti on Christmas Eve. It’s my favorite meal of the year!

My favorite holiday food is a traditional Norwegian cookie, Fattigman (or Futtiman). As a child I remember gathering in my grandmothers kitchen every year around Christmas to make this simple fried dough cookie. My grandfather would roll out the dough and cut it into the diamond shape. My grandmother would fry them in lard or cooking oil. I would dust them in powdered sugar. Now, we get together with my dad every year to make a batch of these treasured cookies.

Mine is a snack mix made with cocoa puffs, chex cereal, peanuts, and pretzels. My mom has made it for as long as I remember and now my little one loves it!

The smell of my mother’s blueberry muffins on Christmas morning is my favorite holiday food tradition. And my job since adolescence of being the designated apple peeler for the apple pie!

Our family tradition is to have cheese toast on Christmas morning. Slices of medium or sharp cheddar on bread and then baked in the oven until the cheese bubbles up so pretty.

We always make sour cream cookies. It’s my mom’s recipe and it sounds kinda gross but they are awesome. They are a delicious, moist cake-like cookie and always put me the holiday spirit.

My husband’s family has a number of Christmas cookie traditions, one of which is his grandmother’s yo-yos — soft sandwich cookies with a rich molassesy center (that’s really just Smuckers apricot jam). All of the bakers in the family have tried to replicate the yo-yos, with historic failures – cookies hard as bricks, too crumbly, too bland, whatever. Apparently mine are the only ones that have ever come close. Now, every year, I get the urgent, expectant phone calls about whether I’ve gotten started on the yo-yos yet.

We have lots of “traditional” foods in my family, but my Grandma’s pecan bars are my favorite. They’re perfect, and even better than pecan pie because of the pecan to crust to filling ratio.

Wow- we also have so many traditions. I think the one I most enjoy now, because I can do it with my daughter, is making her daddy’s favorite peanut butter ball cookies. We travel away from home every other year, but even on the years we travel, we still find time to make the cookies and she loves seeing her daddy’s face while he enjoys them!

I love Cook’s Illustrated. Our holiday tradition is spritz cookies and almond puff pastry. They are a must!

Once upon a time when I was a young wife and mother I baked dozens of different cookies and homemade candy for the holidays. I was the girl in my group that everyone called for help, advice & recipes.
Fast forward 25 years ( that sounds awful, am I THAT old?) divorced and my one & only daughter is a now a grown woman living on her own, BUT the one tradition that I continue without fail are my christmas cut outs. I get requests every year. This year my finace’s daughter said all she wants for Christmas are my cookies! Gotta admit they start out all pretty but after multiple dozens they barely get spinkles! No one seems to mind , and I still LOVE baking them.

My family’s from Arizona, and we have tamales every Christmas!

My Mom makes the best cinnamon rolls every Christmas Morning! Thanks for the chance to win this great cookbook!!! :)

My Mom and I host a neighborhood ladies tea at Christmas time with all sorts of favorite goodies – scones and clotted cream, cheese tart primavera, shortbread, almond cream bars, truffles, cucumber sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches, spinach nuggets, cream puffs, etc. We (and our neighbors!) look forward to it all year long!
Thanks for such an incredible blog, Annie! Whenever I’m looking for a recipe for something new I want to try, I always check here first because I know it will be good. :-)

Every Christmas morning we have chocolate gravy! Yes, chocolate gravy. My grandfather learned how to make it as a cook in World War II and my family eats it once a year as our special tradition.

I am converting to Judaism and starting all new traditions. Tonight we will be hosting or first Hanukkah dinner, with latkes, homemade apple sauce, briskets, hummus and doughnuts. I plan to make that a tradition!

What fun reading about all these Christmas food traditions! Homemade pizza is always served for our Christmas Eve meal- simple, just before the big day!

Our tradition is laying around in our pajamas all day and having a giant breakfast of cinnamon rolls, coffee cake, and other baked breakfast treats while watching Christmas movies, I look forward to it all year long!

My top would be the elaborately decorated sugar cookies that we eat for breakfast each year on Christmas morning. Lots of coffee too, since the children wake us early! Merry Christmas!
Thanks-

I make sweet spiced almonds to give as gifts and to have in bowls around the house. Everyone expects them from me now. They are roasted almonds coated in sugar, salt and cayanne pepper. Yummy and addictive.

My mom always makes lemon cheesecake bars. Yum!

Amaretti – my family first had them on a trip to Italy a few years back – and have made these almond cookies a part of our Holiday tradition ever since!

My grandmother makes baked eggs every Christmas morning. It is one of my favorite meals- cheese, eggs and bread all in one dish!

I made a Challah Bread Pudding for my aunt’s Chanukah party this year, and I think it will become a tradition since it was a huge hit! I think we’ll be bringing it to my BIL’s for Christmas Eve dinner as well.

Every year I make gingersnaps with local sorghum. I’m actually required to make them. My mom always makes what we call Christmas tree cookies that are really almond cookies that she tints green and uses a cookie press with the tree plate. It wouldn’t be Christmas without them.

Every year my family gets together on Christmas eve adn we always eat the SAME thing! My mom makes potato salad, my aunt and uncle make a try with cheese and deli meats, my uncle makes a cabbage salad, my sister makes tiramisu, I can’t usually commit to the same item every year as I like to switch up but I love that I can expect the same meal year after year, it’s just become part of the tradition.

I couldn’t have Christmas without making whipped shortbread. My mom used to always make it when I was little and I love it!

I’m not the greatest cook, which is why I’d love to win a great cookbook! But, I can manage to make some peppermint patties that are pretty good :)

The food that says holiday to me is calamari. My family is Italian, so on Christmas Eve we have the Feast of the Seven Fishes. This will be my first year with my boyfriend’s family for Christmas, so I’m hoping to find calamari somewhere–otherwise it wouldn’t be the holidays!

Ham !

Homemade Dumplings that I now make for every christmas but my grandma taught me how many years ago!!

As a kid we always made Christmas sugar cookies. I always loved that and can’t wait until my daughter is old enough to make them with me.

Our family tradition is apple pies! I love making them and the smell just reminds me of holiday season.

It wouldn’t be a holiday without Grandma’s dressing!

my dad cooking christmas morning bacon outside in the cold. hahaha. mom won’t let him cook bacon indoors, so we get to watch him tenderly care for the bacon through the sliding glass door.

We make red velvet cake every year. YUM!

I make caramel brownies and Christmas chex mix to give to my friends!

Christmas is about the meat–fish for christmas eve with prime rib for christmas dinner. I’m not a big meat eater in general, but this is how things are.

Favorite holiday food tradition: making (& eating, of course) buckeyes!!! Grew up making them with my mom, & am excited to be able to carry on the tradition with my new daughter.

My mom always makes fudge and caramels every year and I still live close enough to her that she always shares with us so I don’t usually make my own. We also love egg nog in our family. We drink it straight up, without diluting it with anything. I think we’d all drink it out of the container if we didn’t have to share! I can’t wait to make your egg not cupcakes to share with my family this year.

My dad’s fudge is a Christmas tradition…and it must be eaten with a beer! ;)

Thanks for the giveaway!

No Christmas Eve is complete without Sausage Balls (hot sausage, cheddar cheese and Bisquick) and homemade Chex Mix!

Our big Italian family has so many get togethers around the holidays and the antipasta platters are always abundant! I also love my grandmothers platters and platters of Italian cookies, my favorite always being the pignoli cookies!!!!

Every year for the past I don’t know how many years, I have made caramel covered pretzel rods rolled in various toppings…mini chocolate chips, pecans, mini m&ms, chopped up andes mints. This year, I am going to try the caramel recipe that you posted with your caramel apples!

My favorite Christmas tradition is my mom’s fudge! It’s so yummy and she only makes it once a year!

My mom’s chocolate fudge. It’s the smoothest, creamiest fudge I’ve ever had, and it’s one of the centerpieces of Christmas gatherings of our family, at least on the dessert table!

My mom makes all sorts of cookies and other treats, and then tries to feed them to me about 5 times a day (usually successfully).

My Mother’s baking is a huge hit every year around the holidays. My personal favorites are her ricotta cookies, mint brownies, magic bars, chocolate chip cookies, and her pumpkin roll….among many others!!!! ;c)

Persimmon Pudding! I know it sounds a bit odd, but it tastes like Christmas to me. Part pudding, part cake and all delicious. Thanks Mom for giving us a unique family holiday food tradition.

Hi Annie,

I just love your blog and have gotten so many recipes from it. My favorite holiday tradition is my grandmothers Italian Cookie. She only made it at Christmas and guarded the recipe for years. She finally passed it on to my aunt who passed it on to my mother who passed it on to me. Now I make it every Christmas. It is like a type of deep fried raviolli and is filled with a garbanzo bean and honey filling. They are delicous.

Raymond

We always have “Ron Feed.” It’s made by my dad and grandpa and it’s m&m’s with peanuts. It’s so good!

One Christmas Eve food tradition in my family is late-night shrimp cocktail! Usually on Christmas Eve, my mom makes a simple dinner (sometimes even ordering in pizza!) and we relax before going to a midnight candlelight church service.

By the time we got home from church, we are always hungry, so that’s how the shrimp cocktail tradition started! I look forward to it every year. It’s fun to have a delicious snack late at night in the dark, with only the lights of the Christmas tree on. Beautiful!

Our family tradition is a Happy Birthday Jesus cake. It started when my sister was about 3 – she wanted to know if it was Jesus’ birthday, why wasn’t there a cake? So, from that Christmas on, we’ve had a birthday cake. The actual cake flavor varies from year to year, but we always have one!

Thanks for the opportunity to share and to read so many wonderful traditions! We have had family traditions, however now that we are married and live farther away from family, we wanted to make some traditions of our own. After we first got married we spent most of the Christmas holiday in between families and respecting traditions at each house. Now that we have been married 4 years we have some of our own. I made truffles one year (with oreo cookies) to try and impress my new family (the in laws). They were a huge hit and it was a nice treat for my family as well. I have been making them ever since. Making new flavors is always fun and it is a surprise for the families as we visit. They never know what new creation will be in the tin until Christmas. Every year there is mention of the truffle treat, so that has made me feel good about a tradition we started that applies to us and our families even though we all can’t get together as one big extended family! Food really does connect people! :o)

Cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, they are a must!!

my mom’s peppermint yule log – it’s not Christmas Eve without it!

christmas sugar cookies with a special twist: brandy! best. cookies. ever.

We make those peanut butter blossom cookies every year. My husband is addicted them and the kids love unwrapping the kisses and shoving them in the warm cookies. :)

Great giveaway!

Our family tradition includes lots of foods! We only make them this time of year, and look forward to it all year. My favorite is our broccoli casserole, which isn’t your typical broccoli casserole. Ours has a nice spice to it.

Ok, this so doesn’t scream holidays, but every Thanksgiving and Christmas my aunt brings a big salad that is to die for. We have tried for years to get the recipe for the dressing out of her, and every year she refuses.

Snickerdoodles! I get requests from the family every year to make these.

I only just started my baking journey and have not created our Christmas traditions yet. I look forward to a tradition of lovely food and happy family memories.

My family always makes sausage balls during the holidays. Simple but delicious!

Every year we make pierogis…in fact we’ll be making them this Sunday! Mmmm…talk about comfort food!

My mom always made the most delicious coffee cake on Christmas morning. And she didn’t make it again for the rest of the year which is a shame but it made it really special when she did make it.

I considered incorporating that tradition into our Christmas mornings with our new little family but I think I am going to make PW’s cinnamon rolls instead. If they turn out well this year, they will be our new Christmas morning tradition.

My mom and grandma always made Chocolate Crackles at Christmas (choc cookie rolled in powdered sugar before baking). They are my favorite (and luckily my husband’s too)! I always thought it was weird that we never made them any other time of year because it’s not a Christmas cookie.

There’s one cookie that my grandma always made for Christmas. Until I have it it doesn’t feel like Christmas time! It was a lot of work for me to get the recipe from her so I could make them when I moved away. :)

I sure love your pizza crust recipe. :)

A cup of hot wassail on Christmas Eve! It makes the house smell wonderful!

My mom always cooked a big breakfast for us every Christmas morning – complete with her famous breakfast skillet concoction that we call, “Breakfast Ready”. :) It’s eggs, ham, bacon, shredded potatoes, ground breakfast sausage and lots of cheese! It’s SO good and I look forward to it every year (yes, we still go to my parents’ house for breakfast on Christmas morning!)

Every Christmas morning we have brunch. My dad loves to make eggs and omelets made-to-order. This year, we are having annual Christmas Brunch at our house and I am excited to make cinnamon rolls! I am also excited for our 5 month old son to celebrate his very 1st Christmas!

My family has a lot of Christmas traditions and they all seem to revolve around food! Christmas Eve is a spread of shrimp, homemade cheeseballs with crackers, and veggie and fruit trays. Christmas morning involves homemade breakfast casserole, sausage balls (my favorite!), tapioca fruit salad and ham biscuits. Christmas dinner is always prime rib, rolls and veggies. And of course starting the day after Thanksgiving, we start baking: peanut clusters, snowballs, sugar cookies, butter cookies, peanut butter balls, biscotti, bachlava and more! Although I live 4 hours from my parents now, I always look forward to going home to the traditions and have even started baking my own treats to bring home.

The only tradition that I could think of off the top of my head is on Christmas morning we drink mimosas while opening presents. Kind of a funny tradition, but it’s ours :)

My mother’s rumcakes. She gives them out to family and friends in December every year. Everyone loves them!

Fudge that my father always makes. I can remember having to stand on a stool to help him stir it when I was a kiddo. Now that we’re grown, he usually waits until we come home for the holiday, so that we can still help him make it.

We make beignets on New Year’s Day, complete with (untraditional, I’m sure) dipping sauces. Can’t wait!

Thanks for the giveaway!

My family’s holiday tradition is butterhorns on Christmas morning. It’s my great-grandmother’s recipe (maybe great-great? I forget) and it takes like two days to make because of all the dough rising, but it’s SOOO worth it! They are spectacular, and we only have them one day a year!

Each year my husband and some family get together to cook up some latkes, which are fried potato pancakes. My family celebrated Hannukah while I was growing up, and so I’ve taken on that tradition!

We have lots of family traditions but I think my favorite is setting aside one day to bake my heart out from morning until evening. Buckeyes, beautiful frosted sugar cookies, raspberry thumbprints, peppermint bark, caramel corn, fudge, almond roca and one new cookie recipe each year. I love wrapping them up in decorative tins and handing them out to the appreciative friends and neighbors!!

A buffet type spread of cold cuts, crackers, cheese and the like…after mass on Christmas Eve. I love it!

Every year we eat my great grandmother’s “ribbon cake”. It’s three layers of different colored and flavored white cake with chocolate icing between each layer. The recipe is over on my (woefully undermaintained) blog!

We don’t have a traditional holiday food item yet, but I’m going to try making chocolate babka this year. If it turns out maybe it’ll become the tradition!

I just recently stumbled upon your blog and can’t wait to try your recipes.

Every year my mom’s carrot cake is a mandatory desert for christmas. Every year my mom make it to bring to her family, and now my MIL asked me to bring one to their home this year. This cake is always a sign of celebration in our family!

Christmas would be missing something tasty w/o my family’s peanut butter balls, for sure. We all love love love them ~ especially straight from the freezer!

On Christmas, we make sugar cookies & decorate them with the kids!

My grandmother made cornbread dressing every year for Christmas. Even with my grandmother gone we still make the same cornbread dressing. It wouldn’t be Christmas dinner without it.

I have started a new tradition in the last couple of years. My mom, sister and I have a cookie baking day and we make all of our favorite cookies and try out a new recipe or two (there could be new favorites in the making!). The cookies we always have to make are pecan tassies and thumbprint cookies.

chicken velvet soup on christmas eve. it’s basically a heart-attack in a bowl, but man is it good….

I have to say it is more a baking activity. Every year I have a Bake-a-thon. Most of the time it is just me baking for hours and hours and hours on one particular day. In fact I just finished this activity on Saturday. Sunday I spent time packing all those cookies and goodies up and today I shipped them. It is an accomplishment! A sampler of 10 varieties of baked goods for my family to enjoy. Whew!

we have a few holiday food traditions… homemade gingerbread and sugar cookies, popcorn balls and peanut brittle… but my favorite is making scones or blueberry muffins on christmas morning. i started it as a kid so that my parent could relax in the morning and i still make them every year.

Ham. It’s one reason that I’m glad my parents are divorced. It means I get twice the holiday ham. Mmm!

My father lived in France for several years so my family tradition is Cheese fondue every Christmas Eve. We buy the imported emmentale, gruyere, and comte. We dip bread, granny smith apples, and potatoes. When my husband spent his first Christmas with my family he had never had fondue before. He realized about two dips into the meal that he HATED the taste of swiss cheeses so he silently got up from the table, went to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of Tapatio (hot sauce) out of the fridge, came back, and proceeded to put some on every piece of bread he dipped before eating it. My parents were scandalized. But now he loves it so it all worked out in the end.

My dad is Italian and he makes the BEST meatballs! We have them every Christmas Eve.

I’m starting what will hopefully be a family tradition with my new little family this year. I’ll be making homemade cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate to enjoy while opening presents Christmas morning. Now that my daughter is eating things like cinnamon rolls, I’m super excited to start this!

Love your blog, Annie! :) And your son is adorable!!
My favorite tradition is gingerbread cookies…the aroma that fills my house is so warm and comforting!

We love to make chocolate dipped caramel apples! They’re so much work but so worth it.

My husband’s family always has a meal on Christmas Eve that consists of appetizers–stuffed mushrooms, shrimp cocktail, bacon-wrapped water chesnuts, some sort of holiday ring/wreath, hot cheese dip with bread chunks. I love the quaintness of appetizers and have loved sharing in this tradition for the past 10 years! For dessert during the opening of presents, we delight in a sweets tray–truffles, caramel covered pecans and other assorted homemade goodies–and a lovely hot drink, usually white hot chocolate with a peppermint stick. Ooooh, I can hardly wait until Christmas Eve 2009!!!!

My mom, sister, and I, along with my cousins, all gather at my house to make cuccidati – Sicilian fig cookies.

Where to start . . . it’s probably carmel corn. I never have time to make it, so I love going to visit family and eating theirs!

I like the simple bowl of nuts and nutcracker sitting on one of our end tables. I can never seem to crack them right and end up with a handful of shell and nut pieces all mixed together!

I bake up treat baskets for family every year at Christmas, I’ve done so since I was probably 15!
I always do something a little different, trying out new sweet recipes that I haven’t had a reason to try yet, but the absolute stand-by is sugar cookies and shortbread cookies.
I’m also doing dark chocolate truffles this year, one of those “banes” haha – I had to make 300 for a wedding, and my mom loved them so much she requested them for Christmas! Lucky I love her so much… they’re so messy, and my hands smells like dark chocolate for hours ;)

My granny makes the best Christmas sugar cookies! They are so good they melt in your mouth. I have no idea where she got the recipe but she has been making them for as long as I can remember. They aren’t too sweet, but have just the right amount of sweetness…the best part is the homemade icing that she makes to top them with. They are thick and soft. YUM!

Our family tradition is to have Monte Cristo sandwiches for breakfast on Christmas morning! We make them with ham and Swiss cheese and we all eat so many of them that we feel like we’re going to burst!

Every Christmas Eve, we make Pepper Steak in the crock pot with Blueberry Crumb Cake for dessert. It is an easy and delicious meal and allows us to spend time with family and friends while it is cooking all day!

Christmas cookies– my mom would always use my grandmother’s recipe to make the batter, and then my sisters and I got to cut the cookies into Christmas shapes and frost and decorate them.

My mom has always made buckeyes every single year for as long as I can remember. About three years ago, I started doing it myself. It’s a little time consuming..but totally worth it. Peanut butter + chocolate = delicious! Plus it makes me feel a little closer to home rather than 5 hours away.

we make lots of cookies every year, but a special kind is the prayer bars – a recipie passed down from my grandmother. Base layer of graham crackers, coconut, nuts, and chocolate, middle layer of vanilla pudding, and top layer of melted chocolate – so it looks a little like folded hands (chocolate on either side…). Very yummy!

My mom makes Christmas cookies every year and has since I was quite little. She makes enough that there are ice cream tubs of them sitting out in the garage all throughout December and into January. She uses my great grandmother’s recipe for frosting, and it is the best that I’ve ever tasted.

I want to learn how to make these cookies so that I can share them with my daughter.

candy cane cookies.
i would love to win this as i am familiar with and love cooks illustrated!

We always have a breakfast casserole on xmas morning!

We love to have fondue on Christmas day. Several different varieties throughout the day.

I love making white chocolate and cranberry cookies. Also, when my dad was alive he would every Christmas eve make a Portuguese seafood dish which was awesome. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

I always loved my mom’s jello salad. My sisters and I lost our mom in January of 2004 without ever getting the recipe (along with many other recipes). We’ve never been able to duplicate her jello salad. We miss her dearly and the holidays are always the hardest! Thank you Annie for your wonderful website! I love recipes and document all of them so one day I can pass them along to my daughter – who, at 11 yrs old, is becoming a very good cook :-)

Sugar cookies! My mom makes the best for me every Christmas!

Every Thanksgiving and Christmas morning, we have homemade cinnamon rolls! We prepare them the night before, let them rise overnight, and gather around them as a family in the morning (along with some sausage, but that isn’t the point!) The cinnamon rolls mean a lot to us because they are Grandma’s recipe. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at 30 and was wheelchair-bound by 45. Mom had to take care of her brothers and sisters, and so she quickly learned to cook! Grandma passed on some time ago, but her memory still lives on, especially with her rolls :)

Every year we have carrot cake for dessert when we celebrate Christmas. If I don’t make it, I hear about it!!! :-)

My mom makes sticky buns every year on Christmas morning, and I’d like to start that tradition of breakfast when I have my own kids. I also like to get a bag of mixed nuts every year and get out my nutcracker, because it reminds me of Christmases at my grandmother’s house when she’d have her nuts and nutcracker out.

Pecan Rolls. Delicious homemade caramel wrapped around a nougat centre and studded with pecans.

My dad makes the most amazing toffee EVER! It’s totally his treat to make. He doesn’t use a candy thermometer, but knows that it’s done when my mom makes her second comment asking if he’s watching it or not ;) He always gets requests to bring it to family gatherings. This year, I can’t go home (due to a baby girl due to arrive on Dec 25th), but I might try to make some myself… if it doesn’t work, Dad will have an official request that both his baby girl and her baby girl NEED some of his toffee!

I make vast quantities of gingerbread and give it to everyone as gifts every year.

I make mini tart surprises every year with peanut butter cups and whatever special hershey Kisses are out at Target. This year it’s irish cream!!!

My mom always makes quiche and french onion soup on Christmas eve!

My grandmothers pecan rolls that she always makes on Christmas morning!

My Mamaw and Pop-Pop used to make these Italian cookies that were shaped into a “S.” They were incredible but ever since my Pop-Pop passed away, she stopped making them. It’s too painful of a memory for her.

Every year my aunt makes these walnut cookies that area absolutely divine. That reminds me-I need to get the recipe, haha. She sends a tin each year filled to the brim with ones frosted with either chopped walnuts or sprinkles. They are delicious and each year I eat way more than I should :-)

Pumpkin pie is the standard holiday tradition for me, though I would like to restore my childhood tradition of blueberry muffins on Christmas morning. They were so good!

I make my grandmother’s sugar cookies and they are yummy!

Turtles and Haystacks!

A family tradition for us is a treat called “Buckeyes” – a ball of peanutbutter/powdered sugar rolled in melted chocolate. YUM!

My husband’s family loves Springerles – an anise flavored cookie that is crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. A traditional Austrian Christmas cookie. I prefer my great great grandmother’s peanut butter fudge, a recipe she developed during the great depression.

Homemade sugar cookies, jalapeño cream cheese poppers, and red wine consumed while Christmas caroling! This is the 20th year of the tradition and it wouldn’t be Christmas without it!

This year I am all over the Chocolate Pretzel Rings as gifts for all those people that you would like to say thanks to, but don’t want to have to buy something. I’ve made trays and trays of them. Also posted about them on my blog with all the variations. So it’s a new tradition rather than an old tried and true one.

Nutmeg log cookies – made with lots of Capt. Morgan’s Spiced rum

Cream corn casserole. It’s divine! (But also very sinful LOL)

My favorite christmas tradition is that every christmas eve we make homemade pizza and it is the best pizza i have all year long!

Our traditional holiday food is the Filipino polvoron.

All it takes is toasted flour, dried milk, a bit of sugar, and we throw in a bit of vanilla and lemon for flavor. Every time my mom and I make them, she gets out her “specially-made, family heirloom” polvoron molder. They’re simple yet delicious, and a lot of fun to make!

White Hot Chocolate on Christmas Eve!

A tradition in our house is pumpkin rolls. It is a thin pumpkin sheet cake that is filled with cream cheese frosting and then rolled tightly and cut into rolls. It is so yummy! Sometimes we tint the frosting green or red. You can add chopped nuts to the frosting if you like, but we are purists and keep it plain. Merry Christmas to everyone and a very Happy New Year!

Peanut Butter Balls are the tradition in our family. Last year I didn’t get them made in time for Christmas. My family was so disappointed that I made them for New Years instead!

I am picking up the ingredients to make your cappuccino fudge recipe this year. I think almost everything I make for the holidays is chocolate! :)

There are two things that mean Christmas to our family. Moms extra salty Chex Mix and homemade Caramel Corn. She always makes enough to last everyone well into January!

Sugar cookies was a holiday tradition my mother started when I was young. While she no longer bakes them, I’ve carried on the tradition, baking them for parties, friends and family. I’ve recently started making peppermint bark for the holidays too. My aunt makes these amaaaaazing shortbread cookies that are to die for each year and thats a definitely highlight of the holiday season.

Latkes are definitely a part of my family’s tradition, but I’ve always been hesitant to try them. I’m conquering my fear of hot oil tonight. Thanks for the giveaway!

peppermint brownies and snowball cookies!

Some of my favorite childhood memories of Christmas involve time spent around the kitchen table with my mom and sister while we rolled out sugar cookie dough, cut out dozens of stars and Christmas trees and bells, impatiently waited for them to bake, and then iced them with lots of red, green, and white icing. We still love to make these every year, and I can’t imagine the holidays without them! :)

My mom’s raisin cookies that she only makes once a year to give away right before Christmas.

Definitely russian teacake cookies (which I’ve heard called many other things), and thumbprint cookies filled with homemade jam. My mom always had the patience to let us help make them, which was so fun growing up! I was going to try my hand at royal icing for my cookies this year, but now may have to make these as well now that I’m thinking about them! :)

Every year I always make fudge and peppermint bark. I know my friends and family enjoy it and they are always expecting it this time of the year.

Every year, we make Kolacky cookies. I don’t know how it became a tradition, but I know they’re my Gram’s favorites, so we never have Christmas without them! :) Thanks for the giveaway!

Nutmeg cookies! I make them every year and everyone expects them now. The one year I tried to get out of making them and try something different, I never heard the end of it! :) Merry Christmas!!

We always make Christmas Candy…the hard kind. I’ve done that with my mother every year since I was a little girl.

So many responses!! Wow!! That’s a book I’ve had on my wishlist since like forever!! Would love to own it!

I don’t have a tradition yet, but I’m pushing hard to make cake balls one! So convenient, easy, and delicious!

My mom always makes cranberry salad – whipped cream, cranberries, pecans, grapes & marshmallows. It’s not Christmas (or Thanksgiving, for that matter) without it. For the next couple of days I eat the leftovers as snacks.

We make Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning breakfast! Delicious!

My family always decorates sugar cookies together.

French onion soup on Christmas Eve.

My family and I have made a tradition of making lemon raspberry thumbprint cookies on Christmas morning! Our little one has a blast with them!

We love our New Year’s Eve barbecued steaks, mmm nothing beats greeting the New Year like family, friends and food.

We always have Dutch chocolate letters. It’s not something that my family makes, but it’s been part of Christmas traditions since before I can remember.

The Christmas sprtiz cookies my family bakes every year along with many other yummy treats!!

Our tradition is trying a new cookie recipe each year. This year I did Snickerdoodle (have actually never made that before!) and Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies. I’ll try to squeeze in at least one more before Christmas.

We are not big on traditions but we always have lasagna for Christmas Eve. Cheers!

Sweet rolls on Christmas morning – my mom’s specialty. I’m still learning how to make them, but hopefully someday I’ll be as good at it as she is.

COOKIES!!! any kind that are full of sugar and in need of icining!

We have tamales on Christmas Eve.

Cinnamon rolls! When my husband an I were first married, I would make them for the guys @ the fire dept every Thanksgiving am as they were going around town hanging garland for the local businesses. I also send them with him on Christmas Eve and we eat them on Christmas morning at home. I usually don’t make them any other time of year….

My mother always makes the best apple pie at Christmas. I have yet to perfect the crust myself though! I just need more practice.

Homemade mincemeat pillow cookies – made by my grandmother every Christmas for as far back as I can remember. She canned the mincemeat and used that in the cookies. I looked forward to the holiday for these as much as the toys – and when I joined the Coast Guard and left home, she sent me a box of these every single year. No matter where I was, I got a box in the mail – even when I was stationed in Guantanamo Bay!

I don’t have a Christmas tradition of my own yet, but I think this recipe book may help me with that problem!

My family always does fondue. Its delish!

I love to have peppermint ice cream with dark chocolate topping.

My family has passed down a recipe for generations for a cookie called a Bratzle. It is a flat crunchy cinnamon cookie made with a hot press.

Somewhat embarassing, but one of our food traditions from my husband’s family is eating take-out Chinese on Christmas Eve.

Bacon, I like to eat bacon on Christmas.

My parents used to make my sister and i cinnamon toast every year on Christmast morning when we were growing up. I actually made myself some this morning because I was thinking of the memory, and it put a huge smile on my face. Hopefully I will be able to carry that tradition forward when I have my own children!

Kielbasa, pierogi and sauerkraut on Christmas eve.. mmm!!

Cookies! Macaroons, jam thumbprints, peanut butter kisses, pecan bars, fudge, etc.

My mom always makes sugar cookies. When i was little, i really didn’t like them … maybe because we would have them a lot. But now that i’m married and live over 4 hours away. When she makes them … yummy, they are GREAT!

This year I learned how to work with Royal Icing to make decorating Christmas cookies a part of our holiday traditions. I am pretty excited about it (and might have gone a little crazy ordering colors and tips).
I love Cooks Illustrated and am just starting to get into baking so I think this would be wonderful!
Thank you!
Meredith

Ever since I was 10 years old and won a blue ribbon at the State Fair for these, my family has made crackly orange and ginger cookies around the holidays. They are a wonderful molasses cookie with hints of ginger, rolled in a delicious orange zest sugar. Yum! Merry Christmas!

My favorite holiday tradition is the holiday pizza. Pizza crust, mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, cheese and a few dollops of cranberry sauce after it’s all done.

We always look forward to biscuits and gravy on christmas morning. This is a tradition we have done as long as I can remember!

Our family tradition is cranberry orange white chocolate cookies, mmmm they taste like christmas!

Definitely baking cookies for Santa with the kiddos!

Okay soo this has been a family fad for awhile! My mom started making these “santa slippers” when I was little and then we give them to all the neighbors and friends in town so we probably make thousands of these little things! If you use the oval toll house crackers, and put a little pit of peanut butter on the end, so that it resembles the shape of a (slide-in) slipper… then dip the peanut butter end in some chocolate and top it with a little red or green m&m, to resemble a slipper tuft!
They are sweet and salty and soo easy — and most definitely a fan favorite! Kids love them and can help make them too! They’re the best!

We have homeade sticky buns every Christmas morning! We put them in the oven to rise the night before, then bake them as we open presents in the morning. It makes the whole house smell so yummy!

My family of origin is Greek and we make a traditional Greek “vasilopita” bread for New Years. It is a sweet bread that is absolutely delicious! Inside the bread a coin is hidden. We cut the bread on New Years day and whoever gets the coin in his/her piece is said to have good luck and blessings for the New Year. In our family, that blessing is accompanied by an envelope of money! It’s a tradition I am definitely bringing into my own family!

I’d have to say…Christmas breakfast casserole that I make every Christmas morning.

Scones for Christmas breakfast.

My family makes pizzelle cookies every Christmas… and we aren’t even Italian. We’re Chinese!

Starting my own this year….making boxes of goodies and hand delivering them to friends on Christmas Eve!

My favorite holiday tradition is baking cookies. It’s not a tradition from my childhood, but one that I started myself and I hope to continue with my own children someday! Now there are certain cookies that my family must have every year!

I always make candy cane cookies and peanut butter blossoms. It wouldn’t be Christmas without all of my grandma’s homemade cookies that she gives us.

Roast pig Cuban style!

This year I made brownie driedels and mini Star of Davids on a stick for my daughter’s preschool class. It was such fun, so that would definitely be a new tradition that I’d like to keep up.

I also am addicted to making anything with peppermint…off to do something like that right now!

My favorite treat for the Holydays is Panettone. I simply love it!
Happy Holydays! :)

My mom makes these german pancakes that we call Hooten Annie Pancakes that I love. And just the name is enough to make me happy!

Another latkes for Hanukkah fan here! :)

My Nana has made peanut brittle every year since I can remember. This year I am learning how to make it so that I can carry on the tradition when I have my own family! I can’t imagine a Christmas without it.

A Christmas strata that my grandmother used to make. She always had a way to make every holiday traditional for us and this was how Christmas morning was typically spent with her. Waiting for the strat to cook and opening presents!

Of course all the Christmas cookies are a must. But for Christmas day breakfast, we always have to make egg sausage casserole (put together the night before and sit in the fridge overnight before baking the next morning.) Yum!

Every Christmas, my mom always makes “burula” a crumbly dulce de leche that’s served cold. It’s sweet and delicious, and I love to have a taste when it’s cooling in the pot.

We make “money bread” every Christmas morning!

I always look forward to my Grandmother’s stew that she has waiting for us when we drive to New Mexico from Dallas. After the long, cold drive it always warms the heart :)

My grandma used to make mint brownies that had a moist gooey brownie bottom with a mint layer and a chocolate frosting. They were so good! Now the tradition has been passed onto my mom, and I continue to look forward to and enjoy them every year.

Since I was a little girl I have made seafoam (honeycomb) for my dad (who is 75). He used to buy it as a kid for a nickel and just loves it! I still make it every year!

Every yead we make buckeyes and I can’t wait until next week to make them!

It’s really generic but every Christmas we make chocolate chip cookies. I have every year since I was a little girl.

My husband’s family has a tradition that I have adopted as my own. Every Christmas Eve we sit in the living room with cups of homemade hot chocolate and my father-in-law reads ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. After he’s finished, he recites, from memory, a parody of it from Spike magazine he read years ago. I always look foward to it. Oh and of course it’s not Christmas without my mama’s fudge. I make No Bake Cookies(because her’s never turn out quite right) and she makes fudge (because mine never turns out quite right) and we trade.

Christmas Dinner is a Holiday Tradition for us and I have had the same meal for Christmas since my very first 32 years ago. Standing Rib Roast, Yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes, green beans, and salad. For dessert Plum Pudding soaked in Brandy that my dad lights on fire. I will never eat the Plum Pudding but it would not be Christmas without it!

My favorite holiday food is my grandma’s recipe for Russian Tea Cake Cookies!

I love all the cute holiday desserts that bakeries have this time of year. Yes, they may TASTE the same as their year-round desserts, but all the decorations they do make them that much better!

Egg Nog does it for me. :)

And cookies of all kinds.

Although many cookies scream Christmas tradition to me probably the food that most stands out that I would miss if we didn’t have it is a recipe passed down from my great-grandmother. It is Sweet Potato Praline and it is heavenly. Although it is a side it is good enough to eat as a dessert.

My Aunt’s stuffing and my coquito!

Happy Holidays!

Corn pudding is a big holiday tradition in our family – and not just Christmas – but for Easter and Thanksgiving too :) It’s my favorite holiday/celebratory dish!

There are two things that really stand out to me from growing up. First, my Mom’s Christmas morning Egg Bake (which has eggs-of course!, ham, cheese, croutons and her “special ingredients”). Another holiday favorite is my Grandma’s Decadent Snicker’s Cookies with a chocolate drizzle over the top. I can’t get enough of those!

This year is our First Christmas Married, and I am going to try to incorporate both of those things into our new Christmas Traditions.

Apple pie in my family :) Just thinking about it makes me want a piece…

Around the holidays, the women in my husbands family get together to make Slovak nut-rolls together. Since we got married, his family has included me in their tradition since they know what a great appreciation I have for good Eastern European food, being from Eastern Europe myself.

We don’t really have a tradition today.

But one food we used to always make when I was little were Ginger Muffins. Muffins that are basically gingerbread! The dough can be made ahead of time, so Mom would pop them in the oven while us kids had to wait in the kitchen for my grandparents to arrive before we converged on the Christmas Tree on Christmas morning. If I had kids – that would continue to be my tradition!

For as long as I can remember my family has always made my Great Grandma’s sugar cookies. They are the best! I’ve stopped eating any other kind because nothing compares.

Sausage rolls

For me the holidays are not the same without homemade caramels. I love to make them, I like to receive them, and I like to eat them!

our favorite family tradition has always been oyster stew! I know not a baked item, but HEAVENLY once a year…the recipe is always the same, and relatives within a 60 mile radius seem to smell it and find their way to us on christmas eve.

Cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning! My mom always made the dough for rolls for Christmas eve, and then would roll out the leftover dough into cinnamon rolls for us on Christmas morning. SO delicious!!!

I hope I win! I love your blog. Thanks for being so wonderful.

My mom and I make Hanukkah sugar cookies together every year with fun shaped cookie cutters that we’ve had since I can remember. Inevitably, the menorah’s candles always break off or Judah Macabee’s arm falls off. It has become a bit of a challenge to make a perfect batch…all in good fun though!

Happy Holidays :)

My Mom’s Christmas cookies. We always make them together – tons and tons of them and they are delicious! :)

Every since I can remember my family and I make a whole lot of sugar cookies, then decorate them which was the best part as a child. It started out as just a family tradition but they became so popular now we end up making around 400-500 cookies, it’s crazy but fun!

For me and my family, Christmas would not be Christmas without loaves of fluffy, fruited pannatone, just Grandma used to make. The anise seeds are the most important part and bring back many memories of how Grandma used to make it.

We didn’t have many traditions growing up so after my husband and I got married, we started our own. I always make asparagus for our family dinner and cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning.

I love spending time in my kitchen and have enjoyed your blog so much! It had helped expand my creativity in the kitchen with new recipes.

Every year I make a few different cookies, but one I’ve made with my family since I was a little girl. Their made of butter, flour, and whipping cream and sandwiched together with frosting. It’s the one cookie everyone still makes even when we’ve grown up and moved away.

Last year, my son was almost 2 so he got to help me roll and cut out the shapes. I love opportunities he gets to learn in the kitchen with me.

My mom makes a pistachio bundt cake every year for Christmas Eve. It’s the only time of year she ever makes it so we all look forward to it. A big slice with a glass of milk always makes the perfect Christmas morning breakfast while opening gifts.

Every year it was those Martha Washington candies. It was the most elaborate thing my mother ever made. I actually really hated them, but they were still what made the holidays! :)

My grandmother’s banana pudding. For some reason, no matter what recipe I use, I can never get it to taste like her’s. It’s delicious and I look forward to Christmas dessert all year long!

I would like to make Gingerbread cookies, but haven’t found the perfect recipe yet. I want roll out cookies that can be cut out with cookie cutters, but that are soft and yummy. Your gingerbread biscotti recipe looks yummy though.

My mom and I always make sugar cookies and then decorate them.

Hello Annie … you sure have a lot of reading to do, and alot of interesting treats and traditions.
My Christmas is not complete without homemade “Nutchos”, which my mom has made every Christmas for decades: 1 pkg semi-sweet chocolate chips + 1 pkg butterscotch chips melted together over low heat in a medium-sized saucepan. Once melted, in go 1 – 1.25 cups salted peanuts and 1 – 1.25 cups cornflakes. The amount of crunchies can vary according to taste. Scoop teaspoon or tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto a wax paper-lined baking sheet and chill to set. They freeze well but are best eaten at room temp.
My sister and I as children would furrow our brows “in distress” to have “just one more”!

Every family holiday we have “pink stuff” – marshmellows, crushed pineapple, pie filling, nuts, cool whip, and condensed milk. It’s amazing, and always the first leftover to disappear! I’m not sure where it came from, but its listed in a battered generational family cookbook as “Jude’s Favorite Pink Stuff”.

On Christmas Eve, we have clam chowder. Homemade by me dad. It is the only time we have it each year and it is sooooo yummy!!

Spritz and sour cream cookies. My dad’s specialty.

We bake all our favorite cookies and fudge for teacher gifts and to send to family. Then we have fondue on Christmas eve. Yum!

We always have a delicious almond kringle for breakfast on Christmas morning…mmm, yummy!

My grandmother always makes homemade caramels with walnuts. Yum!

My husband and I are expecting our first baby (any day now?) and I can’t wait to start a bunch of holiday baking traditions with our little family. For now, I make a mean chocolate chip cookie. :)

It’s not Christmas without my grandmother’s coffee cake. I should probably learn how to make it since she’s 84.

Lurker here… Hi! My favorite holiday food tradition is my family’s appetizer-based Christmas Eve party…. meatballs, cheeseball, stuffed mushrooms, desserts galore… so random, informal, and delicious!

Amanda

I have two traditions that I love. One is a southern egg dish my mom always makes on Christmas morning. It’s called Eggs Ala Goldenrod. It consists of hardboiled eggs & bacon in a white gravy, served over english muffins, and topped with the egg yolk. I’ve yet to master this dish myself.

The other tradition, which I have mastered, would be my Aunt Honey’s sugar cookies. They are the highlight of every family gathering. They are firm, yet chewy. Never too hard. They are light, yet rich. Truly an amazing cookie.

I can’t imagine Christmas without homemade pizzelles, biscotti and cannoli. It’s a lot of work but it’s so worth it.

Gingerbread cookies are a Christmas MUST for me to bake. My dad’s family from Slovenia always made potica bread, and my parents still bake it to give to neighbors and coworkers as a holiday gift. Thanks for inspiring more holiday baking for us all!!

Day After Christmas lasagna.

We have no real Christmas food tradition, unless you count the shot we have to take at the end of Christmas Eve dinner (along with a toast). Apparently it was a tradition started because my mother is the oldest of 6 children and it helped the kids sleep on what can otherwise be an overly exciting night.

For New Years, we definitely do the traditional Southern black eyed peas and greens.

I made chocolate crinkle cookies for the first time this year and we can’t get enough. I think I’d like to start a tradition of making these to give away every year! Love your site:)

Fruit Salad. The one with Cool Whip and condensed milk. Not those non-fattening ones that Americans make :p

I always make jam thumbprints rolled in coconut. Delicious!

We bake krumkake every Christmas. It is a traditional Norwegian cookie baked on a krumkake iron, rolled, and filled with whipped cream. Yummy!

Rum cake is my Christmas favorite! Not very traditional, but its the one recipe that gets requested time and again. Definitely a crowd pleaser :)

My boys (7yrs and 3yrs old) always make candies and cookies to give as presents to our neighbors and family. It’s so much fun to spend time with my kids in the kitchen. Plus they love to lick the spoons!

Every year, that’s gingerbread men covered with sugar icing, and Christmas sables. Just love it :)

Tiny Lady Lock cookies. Recipe made lovingly by my mother in law for many gatherings. Mom is no longer with us but the cookie brings fond memories and keeps her near.

My sisters and I have also done a holiday baking day. We love to make bing bars (with cherry chips). Yum!

Sugar cookies, pecan tassies, butterscotch bars, and all things cookie!!

Fantasy Fudge, just wouldn’t be Christmas without it!

We make tons of cookies and give them away to neighbors, friends, and postal workers. My favorite is nutmeg logs, my husband’s is chocolate crinkles, and my boys like snowballs. I also try to add a new cookie recipe every year.

Last year, I was living in Edinburgh and away from home (Ontario, Canada) for the first Christmas ever. As a gift, my family gave my Mom a ticket over to see me — especially as I was in need of familial support going through a rather tough health time but refusing to give up on my year abroad and go home. When my Mom arrived, we searched and scoured for all of the ingredients to make my all-time favourite holiday cookies: snowballs and spice cookies. I cannot imagine a Christmas without them! For as long as I can remember, my Mom and I would spend a many a days, side by side, baking cookies to give as gifts to our friends and family. Baking brings us together, especially over the holidays. I have always loved baking and this love I get from my Mom.

My family and I fondue every Christmas Eve: easy peasy and super yummy!

My mom’s dressing and Mexican wedding cookies which have a ton of different names. Pretty much its a nut, powder sugar, butter dough. But what makes to SOOOOO good is you roll them in powder sugar which melts into this oh so goodness. Then do a second roll to make them pretty. Ok now I gotta make some.

Christmas means so many different foods for me. Probably my most favorite is my grandmother’s sand tart recipe. My mom makes them every year and my niece and nephew decorate them. Christmas is the only time we make them.

For Christmas it is egg nog – store bought. However, I want to start a new tradition with a corn and wild rice casserole I read about on a blog and have been dreaming about ever since!

Moravian sugarcakes, a coffee cake we always made when I was a child…we would make 10 and give most of them away. I make them every year with my kids, now.

Since my family is Greek, we make a bunch of different Greek pastries. We have thiples, melomakarona, and kourambiethes!
I love your blog! You always have great stuff posted.

Spiced apple cider is always a must for the season.

I love making English Toffee every holiday season. I also like those “Starbucks-like” mint brownies, too. Very rich and very pretty!

Oven Pancakes and they are delightful!!

Growing up, we always had cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. I’m working on my own tradition to start, I just have to figure out which recipe out of the million I love to use!

My mom’s hot chocolate, soo good, it has a little bit of peanut butter. Nothing beats drinking her hot chocolate and opening Xmas presents!

Eggs benedict with hashbrowns and oatmeal muffins. Every christmas morning, after chocolate of course!

Rum balls! Family recipe and they always make me think of the holidays.

My grandma’s Swedish Butter cookies, she always made them for us when we were together at Christmastime. Now that she is gone, my mom continues the tradition and makes them for her grandchildren. Of course, we get to eat some also. It’s really not about the cookies so much as it is remembering Grandma whom we all loved dearly.

Since most of the members of my family do not know how to cook, we don’t have a traditional food. We do, however, have a traditional drink: Welch’s Sparkling Grape Juice. YUM!

My husband and I have started a tradition of eating boeuf bourguignon on Christmas Eve!

Great giveaway!

I recently made my grandma’s Southern Boiled Custard, which was always a tradition to DRINK at Christmas, so I’m excited to continue that tradition and know how to MAKE it! Especially because she hand-wrote and mailed me the recipe.

Christmas Cookies. A shortbread thumbprint filled with Jam remind me of the best baker I ever knew. My Mom.

My favorite food during Christmas time is my mom’s fudge and these little wreaths she makes out of corn flakes, marshmallows, butter and green food coloring. She then puts little red hots on them. They are so cute and so tasty!

“crab toes” … those yummy circular cookies with almonds and powedered sugar. they have a million different names!

We make a chocolate pudding/shortbread cake that is topped w/ whipped cream. It’s gone in a few hours :)

I wish my family had a traditional food. Unfortunately that’s not the case, so now that I’m an adult I’ve made it a habit of baking cookies every year. So far I’ve mixed it up not sticking to one cookie!

My Mom makes “snowball” cookies every year. They are rolled chocolate cookies covered in powdered sugar. Somehow the recipe is improved every year — and I am 33!!

When I imagine Christmas cookies at my house…
it is the big silver mixing bowl…
sitting in the fridge…
with powdered sugar accidentally sprinkled in the bowl…
while one round of cookies bakes in the oven.

Chocolate mint thumbprint cookies!

I make a chocolate thumbprint cookie and use a Melt-A-Way pastel mint from Hickory Farms in the middle.

Every Christmas my mother and I make candies using melted white chocolate, toasted coconut, and toasted sliced almonds. We put the spoonfuls of the mixture on waxed paper and let them cool. They are great and just remind me of Christmas. We don’t really have a name for them, we just call them “white chocolate coconut thingys”!!!

Every Christmas Eve, we have cheese and crackers, a shrimp cocktail and sparkling wine. We also usually have Red Velvet Cake, since Christmas Eve is my Mom’s birthday!

Our family tradition includes a filled cookie. The filling is made with dates, figs and nuts. The outside is a shortbread type of cookie. It was my husbands grandmother who used to make them when he was a little boy!

My mom, sister, and I bake A LOT of cookies. This year we made 10 different types of cookies, 12 dozen of each, in 2 days. It’s a marathon, but we love spending the time together and our cookie trays are legendary.

Decorating sugar cookies! Yum!

We always make white trash or puppy chow as some call it and sugar cookies.

I just started med school and don’t have a lot of time, but I made your cappuccino fudge last night and I think that will become a new holiday tradition. YUM! Thanks for all the inspiration and great recipes!!

cinnamon rolls. :)
and by extension – all things cinnamon.

I just got married to the love of my life after 3 tears together. Haven’t been making anything is particular for the holidays but when we move into our new home and start our own traditions, my oatmeal chocolate chip cokkies will be it!

The overnight blueberry french toast. Made the day before and baked while the presents are open. It is awesome

My mother used to make a rum pudding with raspberry sauce that we loved. Unfortunately, I haven’t had it in years. Might have to dig out the recipe again.

There is not a specific food, but every Christmas morning after opening presents my step-mom makes breakfast. We all sit around and chat and enjoy the good (greasy) food.

Every Christmas morning we make something called Christmas Tree breakfast. It’s really just dinner rolls in the shape of a christmas tree with green icing and sprinkles. It comes out of the oven all warm and we all gobble it up- energy for opening up presents!

My mom and I make this cheeselog (it sounds so gross, I know, but it’s really not) to set out as appetizers. It’s been my job to make it every holiday since I turned four, so it never really feels like the holidays to me without it.

My grandmother, then mother (and now me) always made a Polish bread for Christmas and Easter. My mother always seemed to start it late in the day so we would often either go to bed or wake up to the smell of it baking. That smell, even when I am making it in my own house for my family, still evokes the joyful anticipation of Santa and everything that a kid loves about Christmas.

Fun giveaway! My mom, grandma and I always bake up tons of cookies and go bring them to the homeless shelters on Christmas day.

We always have spedinis and pasta for dinner. “S” cookies are always a must too!!

Every Christmas Eve my family does all of our wrapping, so since we are so busy we always order Chinese food. And then bacon and eggs the next morning!

pecan pie…yum! I also look forward to the annual cookie party with friends and family.

Thanks for the giveaway! Merry Christmas!

Our tradition has always been ham, eggs, and homemade biscuits Christmas morning! Yum!

For me, it’s baking Christmas cookies every year. The holidays would not be complete without them! It’s not one cookie in particular, but just the mix of cookies that I bake for the year to share with friends and family. When I was younger, it was always tradition to make cookies and leave them for “Santa”.

Monkey Bread! We have many traditions around the holidays, but this year I’d like to start a new one. After the presents are open on Xmas morning, I’d like to make Monkey Bread with my 2 girls. Both have shown an interest in cooking and baking this year so I want to encourage them while making a few memories. Merry Christmas!

My holiday food tradition is making cinnamon rolls for all of my family and friends.

Believe it or not, we started making your Eggnog Cupcakes last year and become our Christmas tradition! Some of my husband’s co-workers are even asking them as a Christmas treat for their families!

Since I was a child my mom would always make candy cane cookies . . . a simple sugar cookie dyed and twisted. Simple, but to me it was and is magical!

My Christmas food tradition is the dressing. We cannot have a holiday without it.

Growing up, we didn’t have many “food” traditions — though I sure remember baking a lot of cookies (most of which were given as gifts to other people). Now that I’m starting a family, I hope to make my own holiday traditions!

Corn Casserole! Every holiday!

I bake 25-30 types of cookies every year (I’m in the midst of it right now) and give them away to neighbors, family and friends. People who are on “the list” are quite happy. It’s a tradition that I really love.

Every Christmas morning I wake up and make Monkey Bread! Our absolute favorite! I start with the dough rising the night before so in the morning its easy to do the rest of the recipe. This dish makes the house smell delicious and there are usually no leftovers! Here is a website of what Monkey Bread is: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/05/monkey-bread/
Even though I am a HUGE fan of her blog I make my monkey bread a little different…but I’m sure her’s is equally good! =-)
This year I will be starting a second Christmas morning tradition to go along with the Monkey Bread…home made chai tea eggnog! Mmmm can’t wait! Side note….you have a lot of fun reading to do! Happy Holidays!

7 layer cookie! not christmas to me until I bake them.

My favorite tradition is the cheesy potatoes with the cornflakes on top!

My mom always makes decorated sugar cookies and German potato candy. Now I follow that tradition by always making fudge, sugar cookies, and this year, I’m going to make the potato candy (really really yummy, by the way!)

Annie – just wanted to let you know that your food blog is dynamite. One of our favorite holiday food traditions are Christmas mice ( a dear family friend introduced us which we make each year in memory of her) and buckeyes since my husband and his family are Ohioans.

We always eat mac and cheese on Christmas. Yummm!

I love my mom’s chicken and dressing!

christmas morning we make breakfast burritos. it was a tradition with my family and now with my own little one too.

This year will be the first Christmas without my husband of 43 years whom passed away unexpectedly in January of this year. One of his favorite receipes was DATE PUDDING which I would make every year for Christmas. The receipe belonged to my great-grandmother and I still have it in her originally writting! Many years ago, when I was first married, my mother helped me decide how to transpose the measurements of the ingredients in the receipe. The original receipe called for “butter, the size of an egg”, “a pinch of salt”, etc. I am sure that 100 years ago that is how women measured ingredients! Well again this year, I will be making the famous old receipe for my family and with have thoughts of my late husband and how he enjoyed the dessert!

I’ve been making cranberry bread (more like cake) since I was in pre-school. The tradition started when my mom and I made it for my Grandmother. She loved it. I am now 32 and my grandmother has passed away, but we still make this wonderful treat in memory of her.

“Want-Mores” aka “Dolly Squares”
My mom always made these for us and I’ve now carried on the tradition. I have zero self control any time sweetened condensed milk is involved! So good!

French toast Christmas morning. Also have crab legs Christmas Eve.

Mine is a tradition that I started in my family. I found this amazing recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. I only make it between Thanksgiving and New Years so everyone in my family asks me to bring those.

Occasionally I’ll use them to bribe people to get what I want ;)

I love making homemade Cinnamon Rolls for Xmas morning. Yum!

Growing up, my family’s Christmas (Sinter Klaas) tradition was to eat little round, dutch gingerbread cookies called pepernoten that we bought from the local dutch deli. My husband doesn’t care for them, though, so as a couple we’ve focused more on making a meal together on Christmas Day.

English Toffee. The only candy I have mastered and am quite proud of. I only make it at Christmas time… I am going to make some tomorrow!

Every year we make homemade gingerbread houses and decorate them with tons of candy.

I am Chinese. Every year we sit around the breakfast table and make dumplings!

We always have standing rib roast and Yorkshire pudding for Christmas dinner.

I used to bake christmas cookies with my grandmother when I was a little girl and up until I started having children of my own. Now, I bake with my kids and this year we are making some new cookies and some old family favorites.

We don’t really have a traditional Christmas cookie b/c I can’t seem to settle on just one recipe, so I try out new recipes every year. So I guess the tradition is baking something new for the holidays!

So many favorites over the years but the thing that gets made every year is Manhattan Clam Chowder – the paper the original recipe I used is falling apart.

Every Christmas morning, my mom spends hours making homemade croissants. They are the most flaky, buttery, goodness that you have ever tasted. Yum!
Thanks for all of the effort you put into this website for us foodies!

In the past chocolate covered pretzels were my speciality, but my daughter has a dairy and peanut allergy, so we must be very careful. I am learning how to make traditional items dairy-free, which is challenging. But very rewarding!! Merry X-mas!

Every Christmas morning we have breakfast casserole (sausage, eggs, bread). But stollen, a Christmas bread is something my grandmother used to make that I enjoy making now.

With two year old twins, an eleven year old and a husband I don’t get a lot of time to bake but come Christmas . . .I have a wonderful Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie I love to bake up and put in goodie bags for each member of my family. Rather than spend a lot of money of gifts I like to bake goodies and give those instead, the goodies vary each year but the Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies are the one consistent thing in the bag every year.

My dad cooks ONCE during the year, and that’s Christmas morning! So, our traditional Christmas morning brunch always consists of dad’s trademark scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, and freshly squeezed orange juice from our ancient juicer! NUM!

we always had an egg/sausage/cheese casserole for christmas morning. now that i have my own family, i make the same casserole and hope my kids will keep the tradition when they start their own family!

Sand Tarts! It’s a cookie recipe (simple butter-based cookie dough sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar) that came from my great-grandmother. While other traditions have gone by the wayside as the less of us go home for the holidays, it is something we make every year! And I love the fact that it has now gone through 4 generations of women.

I made pumpkin bread mini loaves, which were a big success, so I definitely plan to make those again this year!

We always make sugar cookies. My mom has a sour cream cookie recipe that came from her mom (Mimi) –it’s soft and delicious and then my mother-in-law has a crisp butter version that is equally as yummy, but very different. My daughters are inviting their friends and we are making them this weekend!

Ambrosia Salad is traditional and my grandmother makes the best Ambrosia Salad. YUM :)~

Can I just say that I am shocked at how many comments there are?!?!? Wow! I’m thrilled that you have so many readers!

My favorite christmas cookie is a springerle. I don’t like the traditional anise flavor, but we also make some with lemon and they are delicious!

A tradition at our house each Christmas and Thanksgiving too is Onion Casserole. It is amazing! If I win, I’ll share the recipe with you – uhhhhm, is that bribery!??! Here is the recipe. Saute 3 cups of thinly sliced onions in a 1/2 stick of butter until translucent with a couple of pinches of salt and several grinds of pepper. Add 1/3 cup of bisquick or similar type baking mix. Stir in 1 1/2 cups of grated cheddar cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 min. add 1/2 cup of grated cheese during last 5 min. of baking. Simple and superb!! We always say – why don’t we make this more often, but we hardly every do!

we make chinese chews every year…a shortbread crust, pecan/coconut and brown sugar filling baked and then a dusting of powdered sugar. Yum!

Potato latkes equal the holidays for me!

I love your blog, and always feel inspired after reading your posts.
We have several Christmas food traditions: cinnamon rolls for breakfast (I’m partial to King Arthur Flour’s cinnamon bun mix, since they’re easy and yummy), fondue for dinner (a special treat which doesn’t tie me to the kitchen for long), and Christmas pudding for desert (my husband is English, but I started making these way before we met).

When we visited the British Isles in 1982, we discovered the joy of a good cup of tea with a traditional scone, slathered with jam and Cornish cream. While opening Christmas gifts we now enjoy a great cup of hot Chado tea and our favorite cream scones (unfortunately, without the Cornish cream) baked from the Evelyn and Crabtree cookbook. What a great way to start off a Christmas morning! We are indeed blessed.

I like to make cookies for friends and family. I don’t have any special recipes, just use the ones that sound good each year so there are always new ones.

Something that always reminds me of Christmas time when I was little, are pumpkin cream cheese rolls. I remember my dad making them for us at home and also for gifts for the holidays. I didn’t appreciate them as much as I do now, pumpkin+ cream cheese=yummy goodness!

I have always brought something to my family holidays every year since I graduated high school. It started with bringing a veggie tray, then moved onto the green bean casserole, and it has evolved from there. For the past 5 years I have been bringing my awesome sweet potato casserole. I mash real sweet potatoes and mix with spices, add a sweet borwn sugar, butter, and chopped pecans. My aunt who is gluten intolerant can even eat this casserole because I use rice powder. I must say that everyone raves about it! I just love your site, I check it about twice a week to see what new recipes you post. Baking is one of my guilty pleasures!

My husband and I don’t have any holiday traditions yet, but hopefully we’ll establish a big breakfast tradition – homemade cinnamon rolls, homemade pancakes, eggs, bacon/sausage – the works!

For the past several years I have been making gift baskets with homemade soup, bread and cookies for friends and family. I put on Christmas movies (Miracle on 34th Street) and just cook away the stress!! Thank you for your wonderful blog, the care and time you put into it really show. Merry Christmas!!

Annie, your site brings me such joy! Thank you for sharing your passion.

Growing up, it was just my mom and I. Both she and I have a sweet tooth that is a force to be reckoned with! Knowing this about ourselves, we would only make our “all-time-favorite” indulgence around the Holiday Season. That indulgence was (and still is) the Perfect Sugar Cookie with Buttercream Frosting. I remember one particular Christmas as we were making these cookies, my mom was manning the oven while I so carefully tried to frost the cookies. She was loading and unloading the oven every 8-10 minutes and eating cookies along the way. When the last batch of cookies left the oven, she turned around to place them on the cooling rack and noticed 6 cookies that all had ONE BITE missing from them! Apparently, she lost track of the cookies she was eating (as she was so diligently manning the oven) and kept taking one bite out of a new cookie each time!

We still have laughs about that from time to time. I love baking during the holidays and think of my mom as I bake and frost our favorite indulgence each season.

My mom used to start her Christmas baking just after Thanksgiving. We are Swedish and there were Pepparkakor (gingersnaps), Spritsar (butter cookie rings), Cardemom Coffee Cake with dried fruit, Cinnamon Coffee Cake, Dried dates rolled in powdered sugar, fudge, sugar cookies, etc. Baking brings back all kinds of fond childhood memories.
On Christmas Eve we always ate Lutfisk. It is traditionally codfish that has been dried over the summer, soaked in lye (!) and then put in a waterbath until it was time to bake or broil it. It was served with peeled white potatoes, white sauce and green peas. When I was little I really didn’t like the taste of this rather butchered fish and only took a little bit, and lots of potatoes. I then covered it all with gobs of white sauce sprinkled with allspice and my parents “never noticed” that I hadn’t taken much Lutfisk. We ate this meal by candlelight so I always figured they wouldn’t know I had had mostly potatoes.