We all know that I'm a crafter- not a baker. But being a baker seems to be a mommy-requirement at Christmas time. My awesome friend Liz (from
Frugally Blonde) hosted a cookie exchange for my Catholic mother's group this year that I was
not going to miss out on! I got an adorable set of
nativity cookie cutters this year, so I thought we'd give 'em a try!
I didn't want to be stressed out about decorating enough cookies for an exchange, so I was determined to come up with something simple to do. Rather than utilizing all the icing tips that came in my cookie cutter set, I decided we would just sprinkle the cookies with colored sugar. This was a perfect job for little fingers! We sprinkled the sugar on before baking the cookies.
In my opinion, the price they charge for the colored sugar they sell in little spice jars is bordering on highway robbery, so we make our own colored sugar. If you're new to this idea, check out
my directions for diy colored sugar. I tried to choose colors symbolic to each nativity piece as best as I could. The nativity colors I ended up using were blue for Mary, green for Joseph, yellow for Baby Jesus & the star, white for the angel & the sheep, purple for the kings, red for the camel, and brown for the shepherd & the donkey. (No need to make brown sugar- I'm sure you already have some!)
I made one set for everyone exchanging cookies, set them on paper plates. Then wrapped them up in plastic wrap.
The set I got came with these pieces:
There was no shepherd in the set, and it didn't have an angel either! I already had an angel cookie cutter that I threw into the mix, and I also had a star that I felt was a little more "star of Bethlehem" than the one that the set came with.
No shepherd cookie cutter? No problem! For my shepherd, I used the king cookie cutter. I just used my finger to round out his head and get rid of the crown. I also flipped him over before I baked him so that he would face the opposite direction of the kings. I flipped some of my sheep, too. When the shepherds were almost done baking I carefully pressed a candy cane "staff" onto the cookies and put them back in the oven for just a minute. Watch them carefully- you only want the candy cane to melt a little bit and it doesn't take long!
I thought the cookies turned out really cute, and my kids loved getting to help! It's so great to be answering questions about the wise men while cutting Christmas cookies with my kids. I was going to be making cookies anyway, so this was a great opportunity to make another Christmas activity focus on the true meaning of Christmas.
I can't wait to find some other uses for our
nativity cookie cutters! Maybe next year I'll stop being so lazy and actually crack out some icing for decorating them... or maybe not. ;-)
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