Creating Holiday Traditions With Papyrus

Happy Holidays Everyone!! Annie and I are so excited to be guest bloggers for this year’s Papyrus’ 31 Days Of Cheer and hope you are too!! The holiday season is one of our favorite times of the year to be with family and friends and create memories that will last a lifetime. Both of our children are best friends and we do everything together. This year we thought it would be super fun to have a little sugar cookie baking party to celebrate December and the holidays being officially here!! With our two toddlers helping us out, we know a mess will surely follow, but it makes baking for Christmas that much sweeter. Besides, messes MAKE memories!!

One of our favorite go to cookie recipes is the tried and true sugar cookie. Not only does it allow our children to be creative, but it gives them the chance to utilize different colors and designs to make their cookies come to life. The snowmans were their favorite. 😉

This will be Liam’s 4th Christmas and Sofia’s 3rd, and it is just so amazing to see the holidays through their eyes. What was once such a special cookie making tradition for ourselves, has double tenfold with our babies. They really are such a blessing and we love creating traditions with our besties.

Annie here from The Annie Issue! This is my second year partnering with Papyrus’ 31 Days of Cheer and I’m overjoyed to partner with Margret and Sofia this year. Our children are true best friends. If they go longer than a week without seeing each other, they’ll continually ask us when their next play date is. You can only imagine how happy they were to be able to bake cookies and write cards to Santa together. To follow what Margret has mentioned about traditions and friends and family, my cheer suggestion this year is to share your family traditions with someone new. I didn’t grow up with traditions and I wish I would of. Traditions create memories and excitement and they should be shared with loved ones. Family traditions can be anything you want it to be. It can be decorating the tree as a family, building a gingerbread house, giving back, or having family movie nights.

When Liam and Sofia were done decorating their cookies for Santa, they each “wrote” him a card. Aren’t their scribbles the best?! Papyrus has the cutest holiday cards. These adorable snowman ones were perfect for the children. We know Santa will love the cookies and signed cards. They’re both at that age where they understand Christmas, acknowledge who Santa Claus is, and are telling us what’s on their Christmas list. Bringing our families together this year has already been so special and memorable.

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Gold Foil Wrapping Paper

Snow Flake Christmas Tree Gift Bag

Gold Wreath Gift Bag

Snow Days Rolling Pin

First Snow Appetizer Plates

Cozy by the Firewood Lid Candle

Dear Santa Holiday Mug

Here is how we made our traditional sugar cookies. 🙂 We hope you love them too!!

SUGAR COOKIE RECIPE

INGREDIENTS

For the cookie dough:

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter,

at room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the decorating icing:

2 cups confectioners sugar

2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons warm water

1 tablespoon light corn syrup

2 or 3 drops food coloring (optional)

Colored sugars, sprinkles and/or candies

for decorating

DIRECTIONS:

Mix the dry ingredients

In a bowl, using a wooden spoon, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until creamy, about 3 minutes. Turn off the mixer and scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Add the egg and vanilla

Add the egg and vanilla and beat on medium speed until blended. Turn off the mixer and add the flour mixture. Beat on low speed just until blended. The dough will look lumpy, like moist pebbles.

Shape the dough

Dump the dough onto a work surface and press together into a solid mound. Divide in half. Press each pile into a flat disk. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled, about 1 hour.

Roll out the dough

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Grease 3 baking sheets with butter.

Sprinkle a work surface with some flour. Unwrap 1 chilled disk of dough and place it on the floured surface. Sprinkle the top of the dough with a little more flour. Roll out the dough with your Papyrus “Dashing Through The Dough” rolling pin until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle more flour under and over the dough as needed so it doesn’t stick.

Cut out shapes

Cut a shape out of the dough with a all your festive holiday shapes. Set the cutout on a baking sheet. Repeat, cutting as close as possible to the previous shape and spacing the cutouts about 1 inch apart on the baking sheet. Set the scraps of dough aside and repeat with the second chilled disk of dough. Smash all the scraps together, roll the dough out and cut out more shapes.

Bake and cool the cookies

When 1 baking sheet is full, put it in the oven and bake the cookies until light brown around the edges, 10 to 12 minutes. Using oven mitts, remove the baking sheet from the oven and set it on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Move the cookies onto the rack with a metal spatula and let cool completely. Repeat with the rest of the cookies.

Decorate the cookies using colored sugars, sprinkles and/or candies. Makes about 36 cookies that you can place on our festive Papyrus plates.