Christmas Entertaining
Oct 05 2026
Christmas shortbread cookies are proof that holiday baking does not need to be complicated. With butter, flour, sugar, and just a few simple additions, you can make rich, tender cookies that feel perfectly at home on a Christmas cookie tray. Shortbread does not need elaborate icing or complicated shaping to look festive, either. A little …
Oct 05 2026
Christmas cookies are much more enjoyable when you do not have to make every single batch during the final few days before Christmas. Many cookies can be prepared ahead, frozen, refrigerated, or partially assembled so that the busiest part of holiday baking is finished long before guests arrive, gifts need to be packed, or Santa’s …
Oct 04 2026
Christmas cookie baking can look intimidating when you see trays covered with perfectly piped snowflakes, intricate gingerbread houses, and dozens of different cookies arranged in elaborate gift boxes. Fortunately, Christmas cookies do not have to be complicated. Some of the best holiday cookies require very little decorating, use familiar ingredients, and are forgiving enough for …
Oct 04 2026
Some Christmas cookies are fun to try once. Others earn a permanent place in the holiday baking rotation. These are the cookies people ask about before December has even begun—the gingerbread that makes the entire house smell like Christmas, the decorated sugar cookies that turn into an afternoon activity, the little powdered-sugar snowballs that disappear …
Oct 04 2026
Few Christmas traditions are as comforting as a kitchen filled with the smell of cookies baking. Maybe your Christmas cookie memories involve carefully decorated sugar cookies, gingerbread people lined up across the counter, buttery little spritz cookies, chocolate treats, powdered-sugar snowballs, or a tin filled with several different cookies that only seem to appear in …
Oct 03 2026
Christmas dinner is much easier when you do not have to keep the entire meal in your head. There is the main course to buy, vegetables to prep, potatoes to peel, dessert to make, drinks to chill, serving dishes to find, rolls to warm, gravy to finish, leftovers to store, and somehow a table to …
Oct 03 2026
A Christmas dinner table can become very beige very quickly. Turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, macaroni and cheese, and casseroles may all be delicious, but colorful vegetable side dishes are what bring freshness and balance to the plate. Christmas vegetables do not have to feel like something everyone eats out of obligation, either. …
Oct 03 2026
Planning Christmas dinner gets much easier once you stop thinking about individual recipes and start thinking about the meal as a complete menu. A good Christmas dinner usually needs one main dish, a potato or other hearty side, one or two vegetables, bread, a sauce or condiment, and dessert. Add an appetizer or festive drink …
Oct 03 2026
Christmas dinner is one of those meals people remember long after the decorations have come down. The roast emerging from the oven, bowls of mashed potatoes traveling around the table, gravy being passed from one person to another, and the inevitable question of whether anyone has room for dessert all become part of the rhythm …
Oct 02 2026
Potatoes may technically be a side dish, but at Christmas dinner they often receive almost as much attention as the turkey, ham, or roast. There is something particularly comforting about a serving bowl filled with creamy mashed potatoes, a pan of bubbling potatoes au gratin, or a platter of crisp golden roasted potatoes arriving at …
