Confession: I am not much of a cook. I work a lot, and by the end of the day, I usually just throw together whatever is the easiest, quickest thing I can make. However, there is one exception to this, and that is baking around the holidays where I love to spread cookie joy! I grew up making Christmas cookies with my family, and hope to continue the tradition with Emma Kate.
Baked goods (cookies more specifically!) make great gifts as well, and I have made them many times as Christmas gifts for family and friends. 
Krusteaz brand cookie mixes are not something I have used before, but when I saw all the delicious flavors, I knew I had to try them! I made some of the Snickerdoodle cookies for Thanksgiving, and then decided to make the butter vanilla sugar as gifts for some sweet friends. I knew I wanted to put icing on them, so I knew the butter vanilla sugar would be my best bet for decorating with red and green icing and sprinkles. 
I used the recipe on the back of the box for the cookies, and for the icing I used a tried and true simple recipe:
1 cup powdered sugar
2.5 tablespoons 2% milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla
5 drops of neon green food coloring
-Stir until smooth, and decorate!
I love wrapping gifts, and knew I wanted a cute and fun way to package my cookie creations. Zazzle has some adorable options and I ended up getting some cute little boxes, stickers, and personalized name tags.
I love how everything turned out, and I can’t wait to spread cookie joy with my very sweet and deserving friends.
If you are looking for more baking and gifting tips and Krusteaz prizes, a #SpreadCookieJoy Twitter Party will be held on December 14th from 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm ET. I hope you will come!
The kind people at Krusteaz have offered a GIVEAWAY for one THLG reader so you can #SpreadCookieJoy with your friends, family, or neighbors. Giveaway includes everything below EXCEPT for the ball jar, so you would get: two boxes of the following mixes: Shortbread, Gingerbread, Snickerdoodle, Butter Vanilla Sugar and Oatmeal Scotchie; an apron, tote bag, cookie cutters and frosting pen.
To enter, simply follow the Rafflecoptor instructions below. Good luck!
Disclosure: I was provided with baking supplies and my own prize pack, however all opinions are my own.
I love making snickerdoodles! No matter what cookie I make, I always top them with sprinkles!! I have so many different kinds, at least 4 per holiday!
One- your cookie gifts are so incredibly cute!!
Two- I cannot think of a favorite cookie I bake.. I’m so lazy ( busy….) I just do snap n bakes. I really want to be more like my mom who bakes over twenty types over the holiday season and gifts this incredible box of cookies to people like yours.
I love the peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses.
I love making sugar cookies because they seem to be the best to decorate. I’m actually going this coming weekend to Le Cordon Bleu to a cookie workshop. We went last year, it is so much fun and I learn quite a bit.
Baking cookies for the holidays is the best! Nothing like a homemade gift!
I love baking shortbread. It just screams Christmas to me.
My favorite tradition during the holidays is baking a bunch of sugar cookies and inviting my friends over to decorate them.
Now I’m just craving cookies, haha.
I love sugar cookies, but no sprinkles!
Yum! I love cookies! One of my co workers makes a chocolate mint cookie with an Andes mint on top, it’s the best!!
My favorite cookie to bake are snowballs aka russian tea cakes.
Snickerdoodles, sugar, and Rolo cookies are must haves in our house at Christmas time!
Love classic chocolate chip, but would love to try some of these 🙂
I love to bake. This years theme is different flavored banana breads, like Jamaican Banana Bread(Coconut & Rum). Of course cookies will be made, still trying to decide on the flavors.
I love baking in general so picking just one cookie is tough. My go-to cookies are sugar, shortbread, and gingerbread this time of year ?
My grandmother’s sugar pecan cookies! 🙂
Sugar cookies have always been my favorite! I’m hoping to get some time to bake this Christmas but it’s hard with the little guy crawling all over the place!
I like to bake 7 layer cookies.
Love chocolate chip cookies
We love snickerdoodles at our house!
I love all cookies! But, I adore chocolate chip… Sugar cookie would be my runner up 😉
I love sugar cookies decorated to look like Christmas trees the best! Of course I love baking and eating just about any type of cookie!
I like making cutout sugar cookies because our kids enjoy helping to make them. They can cut them and decorate them, as opposed to most other cookies where their “help” is actually not helping!!!
I love making sugar cookies that I can decorate with fun flavored frostings, and my other favorite is a family tradition- rainbow cookies!
I love to make all types of cookies, but my favorite is dark chocolate with tart cherries.
Definitely chocolate chip!!
I love to make and eat Gingerbread cookies.
I love the peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses on top..
I have tried several of those Krusteaz cookie mixes. If I can keep the cookies away from the grand kids long enough I might get to try one or two.
I love the good ‘ol chocolate chip cookies!
My favorite cookies to make are peanut butter!
I can never have enough of chocolate chips cookies!
We like to bake all kinds of cookies at our house, from gingerbread cookies to peanut butter. Thanks!
I am trying to watch my carbs, but I do enjoy some white chocolate & macademia nut cookies.
I love baking at the holidays! I’d really like to try these mixes.
I’m old fashioned, my favorite cookie to bake (and eat) is chocolate chip!
My favorite are Linzers. They are classic and always beautiful <3 Thanks for the chance!
I love baking (and eating) gingerbread men and women.
I love snowballs. So good. And fun. But time consuming. But still fun. 🙂
I love making different types of Bon Bon cookies for friends at Christmas. Thanks for the fun!
Fave Christmas cookie – anything chocolate!
LOVE Krusteaz . Our favorite cookies to bake are Peanut Butter!
Chocolate, chocolate chip is my favorite!
i make chocolate cherry cookies!
I love snickerdoodle cookies.
I love making chocolate chip cookies! This year I’m exploring new and exciting recipes, so we shall see how that ends up.
Gingerbread cookies are my favorite. In fact, gingerbread is my all time very favorite dessert and I LOVE this time of the year when it’s readily available almost everywhere!!!
Sugar Cookies
I love Krusteaz mixes but haven’t tried the cookie ones yet….sounds like some great varieties! Now I’m wanting some Snickerdoodles. 🙂
I love eating gingerbread cookies!
I love gingerbread cookies and chocolate Krinkles!
Decorated sugar cookies!