Nothing beats a delicious Christmas cookie decorating party to enjoy with friends and family during the holidays. With a little planning, some ingenious hacks, and festive cookie decorating ideas, your party will be the highlight of the holiday season for you and your guests.
Inviting Your Guests With Style
The Christmas season is a busy time of year. Set the date of your party, make a guest list, and send out party invitations that include details like where, when, and what to bring. Invitations can be email, text, or paper formats. These should capture the spirit of the season.
- Buy Christmas-themed cookie cutters and attach a tag with your invitation details on them.
- Use die cuts to make gingerbread men. Decorate the front and put the details of the party on the back.
- If you are especially crafty, purchase large wooden spoons from the dollar store. Use a wood-burning kit to write the details of the party on the spoon.
Christmas Cookie Decorating Party Ideas for Kids and Teens
Kids love Christmas, and they love cookies, so it makes perfect sense to throw a cookie decorating party that revolves around the two things children adore most in this world: cookies and Christmas. Get creative with your party and work the cookie decorating into fun themes that will last in children's memories for all time.
Cookie Pajama Party
Milk and cookies are the perfect evening snack during colder months. This combination is so popular that even Santa Claus prefers it as fuel for his big night in the sky. Host a milk and cookies pajama party for the young ones in your life. Pre-make all sorts of yummy cookies, assemble decorating items in tins so that they stay neat and organized, and invite the neighborhood over for a sugar rush. Kids can come in their favorite wintertime pajamas, design cookies, and then enjoy their treats with a glass of milk. What a perfect addition to the holidays.
Pass the Cookie Party
Why not work a little game into your cookie decorating party? Older kids and teens can play a game of pass the cookie within small groups. The goal here is for everyone to have a hand in each cookie's decor. Everyone starts with a cookie, adds something to it, and then passes it to the left. The next person picks up where the former cookie artist left off, putting their touches on the cookie before once again passing it over to the next person. Each cookie will definitely be made with the care and love of everyone involved.
Cookie Care Package Party
Gather your nearest and dearest and make cookies for people other than yourself. Work together to make beautiful and tasty works of art, then package the cookies up in tins and head out to deliver your sugary cheer. Stop by neighbors' homes, friends' places, abodes of church members, teachers, and anyone else you choose. Consider delivering cookies to nursing homes and homeless shelters to symbolize the giving spirit of Christmas.
Cookies and Costumes
Kids sure love to get dressed up and pretend they are someone else for a spell. Christmas comes just a few months after Halloween, so kids likely still have their favorite costumes still sitting around the house. Host a cookies and costumes party for your child and their little pals during the holiday season. Have the kids come dressed as their favorite superhero, television stars, or animals. Spend the day decorating cookies in the land of make believe.
Christmas Cookie Decorating Party Ideas for Adults
Gather up your gal pals, favorite couples, friends, or adult siblings and ring in the season with one of these festive cookie decorating party ideas. Make cookie decorating a key element to your gathering, but add some fun twists that will make your guests count down the days until next year's bash.
Couples and Cookies
If you have several couples that you want to get together with over the holiday season, throw a cookie decorating party with a Couples and Cookies theme. Make everything about this party matchy-matchy. Ask each couple to bring a bottle of wine to pair with the cookies and ask everyone attending to come in a set of matching Christmas sweaters or pajamas. Spend time sipping wine and decorating pre-made cookies while you chuckle over whose outfit (and cookies) are the best of the best.
Cookies and Caroling
Cookie baking and caroling are two seasonal traditions that many people work into their festivities. Gather up your friends and decorate dozens of pre-made cookies. When the decorating is good and done, head into the snowy night and treat your neighbors to songs of the season. Bring along mugs or warm cocoa or a seasonal adult beverage to warm your belly.
Cookie Charcuterie Party
Charcuterie boards are all the rage, and while the intention of the food set up was initially meats, cheese, and little savory snacks, there's no reason you can't take charcuterie boards and apply the concept to Christmas cookie parties. To throw a cookie charcuterie party, have a board on hand for each guest or a small team of guests. Everything they need to make their cookie dreams come true should be on their charcuterie boards. Pile them high with small sugar cookies or gingerbread men. Include frosting options, sprinkles, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, and colorful design elements to make cookies pop.
Cookie Exchange Party
Cookie exchanges are so much fun to partake in over the holidays; and a cookie decorating party is the perfect place to work this idea into your holiday traditions. Everyone who comes to your cookie decorating gathering should bring a different type of pre-made cookie. Recipes can range from common Christmas flavors to out-of-the-box treats. Guests bring what they need to decorate their own cookies and put final touches on their creations. Once all cookies are completed, everyone at the party fills their tins with various cookies, leaving with a delicious array of treats.
Cookie Making and Decorating Hacks
It goes without saying that you'll want to have your cookies baked in advance. Sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies are ideal for cookie decorating parties. However, regardless of what recipe you use, keep these tricks in mind for flawless cookies every time:
- Bake the cookies well in advance, and plan to have all your baking and cooling done at least the day before the party.
- After you make the dough, chill it in small, gallon-size bags. This way, you can pull out a small amount of dough at a time to work with it. (Dough gets sticky and difficult to work with as it gets warmer).
- If you're short on time, cut your refrigerating day in half by freezing the dough instead of refrigerating it.
- Make an extra batch so you have more cookies to work on if decorating doesn't turn out to someone's liking.
- Choose three to four cookie-cutter designs to make it a little easier on you. However, don't feel like you have to stick to traditional themes. Consider Christmas palm trees, Ninja-bread men, or even winter animals like penguins.
- Provide each guest with a muffin tin filled with doodads like edible pearls, crushed candy canes, or edible glitter. The tins help keep everything organized.
- Royal icing is the best frosting for decorating cookies. Provide multiple colors in both bowls (for spreading) and baggies (for piping).
- For kids, buy empty ketchup bottles (usually found at the dollar store) and fill them with icing.
- Give each guest a tin baking sheet (available at the grocery store) to take their cookies home on. This way, there's no stacking cookies whose frosting hasn't quite dried yet.
- Print design suggestions and directions on postcards and leave them on the decorating table.
Christmas Cookie Decorating Fun
While there are many details involved in hosting an epic Christmas cookie decorating party, the key ingredient is fun! Christmas music, delicious foods, and fellowship will make this a memorable holiday event.
