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For many of our readers, making cookies during the holiday season isn’t a just another chore to check off the list: It’s a great way to make memories with friends and family.

This is the sixth year that we have asked Eat readers to reminisce about holiday cookie-making, and as always, we were inundated with great stories, photos and recipes.

We picked a few handfuls of our favorite entries from the stack — there just wasn’t space to run them all.

But keep your memories top of mind, and be sure to take lots of pictures while making cookies this year. This is officially a Pioneer Press holiday tradition.

Memories and recipes have been edited for length and clarity, in some cases.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed making Christmas cookies. Thanksgiving weekend my mother would pull the special cookie recipes reserved for Christmas from her recipe box. I have continued the tradition with my children and now my grandchildren.

A double batch of a dozen varieties of cookies are made in the next couple of weeks so we have enough to share with family, friends and neighbors.

Today the recipes include my husband’s, children and grandchildren’s favorites, two being rosettes and krumkake. My granddaughter Audrey enjoys baking and helps me with the krumkake.

Beat eggs and sugar until bright yellow. Add cooled melted butter and vanilla. Sift flour and cornstarch, add to egg mixture. Batter will have a dough-like consistency. Place 1 heaping teaspoon of batter on grid. Bake approximately 50-60 seconds. Remove the krumkake from grid, shape it immediately with wooden cone.

Family memories and Grandma’s signature spritz cookie die date to the 1940s, when my stoic Norwegian mother Alice Field Vick began her annual Christmas baking.

Her generous yet frugal nature meant allotting the precious candied cherries sparingly (getting 6 cookies per cherry!), permitting her to fill many more tins to share at church on her tight budget.

Her handwritten recipe card reflects her matter-of-fact personality, where her only note to this festive recipe is “Good.”

Five generations later, her granddaughter still uses her recipe and star die to make those spritz wreath cookies, continuing her generosity of sharing.

She would be pleased that we’ve never missed a year, and her tradition and memories continue.

It’s still good, Mom.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream butter and sugar. Add egg yolks, then flour. Send dough through cookie press onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes.

My mother would make Frying Pan Cookies every Christmas season, always in her large cast-iron frying pan. She would roll the cooled date mixture into balls and we were allowed to roll the balls into the coconut. They kept very well in our assorted Christmas tins and boxes lined with waxed paper.

Along with helping to make the Russian Tea cakes and other goodies, it was a special time spent with my mom. She passed away in 2010 at the age of 95 and I think of her often especially when making cookies for the holidays.

— Vicki Baker, Inver Grove Heights

1 cup chopped nuts (I use pecans)

Combine the first seven ingredients (butter through dates) in a frying pan and cook slowly. Add a cup of chopped nuts. Turn off heat and add 4 cups of Rice Krispies. After cooling a bit, roll into balls, then roll balls into flaked coconut.

I am a Lebanese woman who loves family and loves to cook. I have organized a Lebanese cookie bake at my house for several years for my family. It never was small. My nieces and nephews asked me to show them how to make different traditional Lebanese Christmas cookies and Butlaywa (Baklava). It turned into a party. We would be mixing dough on Saturday, baking all the cookies on Sunday. Everyone got their share of treats to take home.

We have made up to 188 dozen cookies in one weekend. There were 25 helping with this. We had different stations, rolling out, stuffing of nuts, baking, frying, cooling, and packaging. It was a very bonding, loving time.

I bought all the ingredients and however many people worked the cookie bake, divided the cookies and the expense. It never ran over $10-$12 dollars. Everyone was happy.

— Joanne George, West St. Paul

1 teaspoon rose water or orange water

Mix equal parts sugar and water until sugar is dissolved.

Mix the first six ingredients by hand. This should be a moist, workable dough, like a pie dough. Section into 3/4 ounce balls — this will give you four dozen cookies. After you roll them into balls, roll each with a small rolling pin into a round cookie.

Mix stuffing ingredients, then place 1/2 to 1 teaspoon filling onto each cookie. Fold over into a half moon and roll or press edges to seal.

Bake for 25 minutes, then dip in simple syrup before dusting with powdered sugar.

My grandma made these cookies every Christmas. When I was a teenager, I asked her for the recipe. She didn’t have one! Grandma was a good baker, I guess she didn’t need a recipe, but I did. Together we worked out the proper amounts and I have made them every Christmas since. Grandma has been gone many years and I always think of her when I make these. I sure miss her. As an adult I have been diagnosed with celiac disease so now I make a gluten free version as well. By the way, Grandma told me that her mother brought this recipe with her from Norway.

1/4 cup molasses mixed with 1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients. Roll out, cut and bake for 10 minutes. Cool, then frost with your favorite icing or frosting recipe.

1/4 cup molasses mixed with 1 teaspoon baking soda

Chill dough for at least one hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Dust rolling surface with a mixture of gluten-free flour and cornstarch, then roll and cut cookies. Bake for 10 minutes, cool and frost with your favorite icing or frosting.

A favorite cookie that all of my brothers and sister enjoyed at Christmas was my Grandma Ann’s Pinwheel Date cookies.  She would arrive with a couple of ice cream buckets filled with this date-filled favorite.  We never saw her make them but they were always there for Christmas dinner.  When Grandma Ann passed I was lucky enough to get the recipe, written in her own hand.  Over the years I have mastered the making of these cookies to keep the tradition going.  It has become my own grandchildren’s requested favorite.

— Elizabeth Erickson, Spring Valley, Wis.

In a saucepan, combine dates, sugar and water.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thick, about 8 minutes. Cool.

Cream butter and sugars, then add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon. Add gradually to butter mixture. Chill so it is easier to handle. Divide the dough half and roll on lightly floured surface to a rectangle 1/4 inch thick.  Spread with half the date filling and roll up jelly-roll style. Wrap with plastic wrap or parchment paper. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling. Chill dough rolls overnight.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Before baking, cut dough into 1/3 inch slices. Place on greased cookie sheets 2 inches apart. Bake for 12 minutes. Cool on wire racks. Makes four dozen cookies.

Swedish Bar Cookies are thin, crisp, and buttery, and are perfect to dunk in milk or coffee. This recipe is credited to my husband’s great-grandmother, Minnie Nyman. Minnie’s father immigrated from Sweden in 1869; Minnie married Axel Nyman, who immigrated from Sweden in 1907. While it is uncertain which Swedish branch of the family this recipe came from, making Swedish Bar Cookies has been a Nyman Christmas tradition for at least five generations, with family members gathering for the yearly baking ritual.

I joined the fun after I married into the family in the 1980s, and was gifted Grandma Nyman’s cookie press many years later. My daughter and I are honored to continue the Nyman Christmas custom every year when we make dozens of these cookies for family and friends, as do several other Nyman cousins across the country.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, cream both sugars and butter. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Mix flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl. Slowly add to the wet mixture. Using a cookie press with the bar disc, make 5 rows of cookies on an ungreased metal cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes. Cut bars into fourths and remove from baking sheet immediately. Rinse cookie sheet in cold water before adding the next batch of dough.

In 1994, my best friend, Connie, and I decided we wanted to make Christmas cookies.  Her son was 2 and we thought we could crank out a few batches while he napped.  Those were our salad days. She had a galley kitchen with a compact oven. Her washer and dryer served as our countertop. The mixer was a freebie from the bank and it smoked if we put it on high.

We had no Tupperware, just paper plates and generic plastic wrap. No timer either, so more than one batch burned a bit.  Except for the pandemic, we haven’t missed a year since. Nowadays we use her Kitchenaid mixer on her granite-topped kitchen island. Baking cookies with Con is like getting in a time machine. We’re 57 now but we feel as if we’re 30, and I suspect we always will on Cookie Baking Day.

The following recipe is one of our favorites, and I believe my Mom first found it in the Pioneer Press back in the ’70s.

1 cup sifted confectioner’s sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the butter, confectioner’s sugar, and vanilla thoroughly.

Gradually add the flour, salt and oats.

Divide into halves. Shape each half into a roll 1 1/2 inch in diameter. Coat each roll with chocolate shot. Wrap in tin foil and chill for one hour or more. Slice 1/4 inch thick. Place on ungreased cookie sheet.

Mom’s jolly gingerbread boys are one of our family’s sweetest holiday memories. A tradition begun some 65 years ago and only interrupted once due to COVID. It started with Mom, now 98, who donned her apron, grabbed her rolling pin, spices, icing, raisins and Red Hots and went to work every December transforming hand-cut Christmas characters into a joyous troupe of gingery confections for her seven kids.

But, it isn’t just her gesture of love that’s made this tradition so special. Every year, after Midnight Mass, we’d all return to Mom’s to devour the tasty treats. And, to no one’s surprise, as the family grew with engagements, marriages and grandbabies so did the number of gingerbread. Without fail, year after year, no matter our age – Mom made sure a ginger cookie man with our name on it was always waiting for us. Some danced, some leaped, some wore caps, others donned mittens. And yes, there was always one left out for Santa.

2 teaspoons baking soda in 3 tablespoons cold water and set aside.

Prepared soda/water mixture and sifted ingredients. Mix until combined.

Wrap and chill dough until firm. Roll out very thick. (1/2 inch). Cut out boys using your prepared pattern (or a cookie cutter).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place boys on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for 15-18 minutes. (Tip: To ensure they’re done, touch lightly with your fingertip. If no print remains, they’re ready for cooling.)  Cool completely and decorate. Store and freeze in an airtight container.

During 2020, Christmas cookies were one way to show our love for our family – we previously had been living in London and could not send our usual cookie gifts. Now back home in St. Paul, I thought I was being smart to hide the finished cookies in the garage. To my consternation, on Dec. 22, when I was ready to pack them up, I discovered my stash had been raided.

One tin of cookies was completely empty.  My son, home for the holidays from St Olaf, confessed he had a candy-cane cookie midnight snack, giving new meaning to the Ole chant, “Um Yah Yah!”

As part of his penance, he was drafted into cookie baking. He spent several hours with me, mixing, forming, sprinkling and baking his way back into our hearts. It was our best batch of cookies yet!

For sprinkling: Peppermint candy canes

Mix powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, almond extract and egg.  Stir in remaining ingredients.  Separate dough in half;  add red food coloring to one half of the dough.  Mix well to make the dough a consistent dark pink/red color.  Refrigerate dough for 2 hours.

While waiting for dough to firm-up, crush candy canes.  Put them in a ziplock and crush with a rolling pin until fine/suitable for sprinkling. (The mini candy canes are easiest to crush)

When dough is sufficiently firm, take 1/2-1 teaspoon of each color of dough, and roll each into a rope of 3-4 inches.  You may need a bit of flour on your work surface to keep the dough from sticking.  Press white rope and red rope into the crushed candy cane, and then twist the ropes together into the shape of a candy cane.  (Thin ropes will hold their shapes better when baked, so adjust the amount of dough accordingly).

Place on parchment paper and bake at 375 degrees for 7-8 minutes.   Cookies are done when they are slightly light brown at the edges.

Baking holiday cookies has been a tradition in our family for as long as I can remember. My Grandma would come to our home and make them with my Mom every Christmas. They would spend the entire day making 10 or so varieties of cookies, including Italian favorites and many from the Betty Crocker “Holiday Cooky Book.” My favorite was always the snowballs or what we called Pecan Balls. We also made spritz, pecan pies, candy canes, thumbprints with icing, gingerbread and sugar cookies. Today I make them with my mom and daughter — we passed the tradition down.

P.S. The secret to perfect snowballs is to dip them in powdered sugar THREE times!

1/2 cup power sugar, plus more for coating

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine all ingredients. Grease the cookie sheets or use parchment paper.  Roll dough into balls. Bake for 8-10 minutes. They will slightly brown and crack. Prep 2 bowls of powdered sugar while baking.

Once out of the oven gently roll hot cookies into each bowl of powdered sugar and let cool.  Dip balls a third time and cool on rack.

When it comes to traditions, there are few stronger than our annual Cookie Day which started before I can remember. Many traditions slowly fall apart as the years pass, but ours has evolved into a full-day baking extravaganza. The love of baking was passed on from my grandmother Carmella to both my mom and me; and hopefully someday soon we will pass it on to my future child.

Even the pandemic couldn’t stop Cookie Day last year. After being apart for months, we quarantined before Cookie Day and wore masks for 12+ hours while we baked and frosted hundreds of cookies.

Each year, we bake a variety of cookies to share with family and friends but there is one that is always the star of the show – Grandma’s sour cream sugar cookies.

Beat butter and shortening on medium-high until soft. Add half the flour, the sugar, egg, sour cream, baking powder and lemon zest. Beat until combined. Stir in remaining flour. Divide dough in half. Cover and chill 2-3 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. On a floured surface, roll dough 1/8” thick. Cut with cookie cutters. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 5-6 minutes. Remove and allow to cool before frosting.

Combine all ingredients, adding drops of milk or pinches of powdered sugar until icing reaches desired consistency.

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