Christmas Cookie Bakeathon Preparation

Each year our family bakes hundreds, if not thousands, of Christmas cookies. We share them with almost everyone we see during the holidays:  clerks from our favorite stores, delivery personnel from Fed Ex, UPS and more, everyone at my husband's place of employment, elderly friends, family, church friends and so on!  We have learned to prepare ahead of time, so when the baking day comes, we can quickly, well, not quickly, maybe efficiently get them all baked and packed.

We use plastic storage bags and measure all the ingredients possible, dividing the wet from the dry.  A copy of the recipe is stapled to one of the bags and they
are all tied up together (the bag of chips is stapled, too).

Here are several all ready to go. This saves a ton of time and a huge mess the day of baking.  When all are measured we lay them out in order of how we want to bake them.

Boxes are ready to pack full of cookies for the plant workers at my husband's place of employment (one for each shift and there will be a tray for the office, too).

Empty oatmeal boxes have plastic bags inside and are ready to fill for out of town relatives.

Mailing boxes have been decorated and cards signed all ready to hold the oatmeal boxes of cookies.  We freeze the boxes of cookies before we mail them -- this helps them get to their destination even fresher.

Candy is mixed and ready to add to the cookie packages. The strong flavored ones are opened and added last so they don't flavor everything else.

The final day before preparation:  make treats for the dogs of the cookie recipients.

You can see our baking day in this post:  Christmas Cooking Bakeathon Tradition ~ Baking & Giving.