17 Days ’Til Christmas — Christmas Cookie Baking Day (Let’s Plan It Today)

This post is part of the 100 Days ’til Christmas Challenge — one small step each day to make the holiday season less stressful and a lot more fun.

If holiday baking is one of your favorite parts of December, today is the perfect moment to start planning your Christmas Cookie Baking Day before things get wild. We’ve only got two weekends left before Christmas, which is less time than it sounds like, so this is your gentle reminder to get things organized before cookie chaos rolls in.

Today isn’t about turning on the oven — today is about planning ahead so your actual Christmas cookie baking day feels relaxed, fun, and totally doable. Grab your recipes, start a little list, and let this be the moment where you set yourself up for a smooth baking weekend.

Choosing the Date for Your Christmas Cookie Baking Day

With only two weekends left before the holiday, I’m claiming the weekend before Christmas as our official Christmas cookie baking day this year. It gives me room to prep ahead and keeps the whole thing enjoyable instead of rushed.

Pick your date now so it doesn’t get swallowed by everything else December throws your way. Even naming the day helps anchor the rest of the planning.

Pulling Out the Recipes That Make Your Christmas Cookie Baking Day Special

This is my favorite part of planning — digging out the recipes that show up year after year. Some are handwritten, some are screenshots, and some are family traditions no one can explain but we keep making them anyway.

Here’s what I’m baking for my Christmas cookie baking day this year:

• Snickerdoodles
• Ginger molasses cookies
• Chocolate crinkles
• Sour cream pretzels (a family recipe that is neither sour cream nor pretzels… and yet here we are)
• Gooey butter cookies
• Rolo pretzel bites

It’s nothing fancy — just the classics that make everyone in my house happy.

And if you’re planning extras for neighbors, teachers, or a cookie exchange, the Cookie Swap Ideas post we just did is a great companion to this one. It pairs perfectly with planning your holiday baking lineup.

Our Cookie Decorating Party Tradition

One of my favorite December traditions is our annual cookie decorating party with the grandparents. Everyone gets to decorate cookies and then submit their best one. We line them up, and then the voting begins. The prize changes every year — sometimes it’s cash, sometimes it’s a silly hat, sometimes it’s whatever I grabbed last-minute. It’s chaotic in the funniest way and something my kids look forward to every year.

We always use our orange-flavored rollout cookies for decorating. They come together quickly, you don’t have to chill the dough, and the flavor is unreal — soft, bright, and a little different thanks to the orange juice and fresh orange zest. They have this unique rollout-cookie taste people never guess but always love.

If you want to use them on your Christmas cookie baking day, I shared the full recipe back on 61 Days ’Til Christmas — Bake a Fall Treat.

Since I know this decorating party is coming, I always plan my baking schedule around it so the dough and icing are ready when grandparents arrive.

Read Through Your Recipes Before Your Christmas Cookie Baking Day

While you’re deciding what to bake, take two minutes to skim the actual recipes. It’s not serious research — just enough to avoid discovering at 9 p.m. that your dough needed a three-hour chill.

Some doughs rest.
Some bake right away.
Some need that one random ingredient you never buy.

A quick read now makes your Christmas cookie baking day go a whole lot smoother.

While you’re at it, peek at the pantry to see what you already have:

• Butter
• Flour
• Brown, white, and powdered sugars
• Cocoa
• Spices
• Sprinkles and icing
• Parchment paper

This isn’t a shopping trip — just reconnaissance so you feel prepared.

Deciding How Big (or Small) Your Christmas Cookie Baking Day Will Be

Your Christmas cookie baking day can be anything you want:

Some years I go all in with multiple batches.
Some years I bake two things and call it a win.
Some years the kids “help” for five minutes, take a warm cookie, and disappear like tiny dessert bandits.

Whatever gets done, gets done. Your holiday baking day doesn’t need to be elaborate to be meaningful.

A Holiday Cookie & Candy Planner to Organize Your Baking Day

To keep everything organized, I made a Holiday Cookie & Candy Planner that you can use to track:

• What you’re baking
• Where your recipes live
• The ingredients you need
• Quantities
• Any prep you want to do ahead of your Christmas cookie baking day

Here’s what it looks like:

You can download this planner free inside the Holiday Hub when you sign up for my newsletter. Once you sign up, you get access to this planner and every holiday printable we’ve shared this season — all in one spot.

It makes planning your Christmas cookie baking day so much easier.

Before You Go

Today is all about preparing for your Christmas cookie baking day so next weekend feels fun instead of stressful. Gather your recipes, choose your baking date, and start a small ingredient list. Your future self will thank you when you’re not sprinting around the kitchen at the last minute.

Tell me what’s on your baking list this year — I love seeing everyone’s lineups.