‘Tis the season for baking cookies and all sorts of delicious holiday treats. Whether you’re looking for Christmas Cookie Challenge Recipes or just a tasty Christmas Cookie Recipe to make for the family, you’ve come to the right place.
We’ve gathered a list of favorite Christmas cookie recipes including chocolate crinkle cookies, molasses cookies, and even a festive Santa cookie.
These festive cookies will win over any heart and possibly even help you win that Christmas cookie contest!
What is a Christmas Cookie Challenge?
A Christmas Cookie Challenge is usually held this time of the year around the holidays and is typically a contest where bakers will make their best Christmas cookies in hopes to win the challenge for having the best holiday cookies. There’s also typically a prize involved.
What You Need for to Complete a Christmas Cookie Challenge
- Your favorite holiday cookie recipe
- Christmas cookie tray (for displaying your sweet treats)
Ways to Stand Out in A Christmas Cookie Challenge
While some opt for more traditional holiday cookies, others take their Christmas cookie to the next level. Ways you can do this are by using:
- Food Coloring
- Green Sprinkles
- Making the cookies in Festive Shapes using Christmas Cookie Cutters
- Candy Canes
- Royal Icing
- Peanut Butter
- Any other festive flavors and colors to help bring your cookie platter to life!
You’ll also need a bit of holiday cookie-making skills and a dash of holiday spirit!
The Best Christmas Cookie Challenge Recipes
Our favorite Christmas Cookie Challenge Recipes that will fulfill any holiday baking wishlist and even help you win those Christmas cookie contests!
These Grinch Cookies are the ultimate holiday cookie. They have a soft, gooey texture, are colored to the perfect shade of Grinch-green and topped with powdered sugar and a tiny red heart sprinkle. They are so perfect, you'll never need another Christmas cookie recipe again!
Christmas Snowball Cookies are the perfect bite-sized treat to serve up for the holidays. These are a nut-free recipe and perfect for cookie exchanges and holiday parties!
Snowflake Sugar Cookies will be a gorgeous addition to any holiday spread.
These Grinch Cake Mix Cookies are so easy to make using just 5-ingredients and they'll be sure to have your heart grow three sizes with every bite!
These festive Grinch Thumbprint Cookies are the perfect treat for any holiday party or as a sweet addition to your holiday baking lineup.
Christmas Lights Cookies are a fun and festive treat to make for the holidays!
Santa Nutter Butter Cookies
These Hot Chocolate Cookies have since become one of the most popular cookie recipes on Love From The Oven. Hot Chocolate Cookies are perfect Christmas cookies and are great cookie for cookie exchanges.
These Gingerbread Cookies are so delicious! These would be a great addition to a Christmas party, on a dessert table, or a Holiday Cookie Exchange. They’re crunchy and a little chewy, and the Butter Cream Frosting is so sweet and creamy it melts in your mouth, and adds a wonderful finish to this cookie.
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies have a rich and fudgy center with a crisp powdered sugar outer layer. Crinkle Cookies are just as important as Sugar Cookies on your holiday cookie tray.
These are the Best Chewy Molasses Cookies ever, and a must make Christmas cookie tradition! The perfectly crackled tops and chewy insides are irresistible!
This No-Bake Church Window Cookies recipe is my go-to holiday cookie, because it only requires 5 ingredients, and it’s so quick and easy to make!
Christmas sprinkle pudding cookies are soft, chewy, and easy to make in under 30 minutes with no chill time. A tasty and easy Christmas sprinkle cookie recipe for your Christmas party.
These festive Pinwheel Sugar Cookies just might be the best Christmas cookie recipe ever! They’re made with a simple sugar cookie dough, and the beautiful red, white, and green spiral design is surprisingly easy to make.
This Christmas Cake Mix Cookies recipe is the easiest and quickest way to bake your holiday cookies because it combines 4 simple ingredients with a box of cake mix using only one bowl and requires no chilling!
Consisting of red and white sugar cookie dough, that gets twisted together and then formed in to the shape of a candy cane, this is one of my favorite cookie recipes to make with kids!
Candy Cane Crinkle Cookies are the best peppermint flavored cookies around. They are crinkly on the outside and gooey on the inside making them the perfect holiday cookie.
I can’t tell you how long I’ve had Lofthouse style sugar cookies on my ‘must bake’ list. Too long, really.
These White Chocolate Dipped Ginger Cookies are the best ginger cookies around! They’ll quickly become a new favorite holiday cookie!
Santa Gnome cookies are starting to pop up here and there so I decided to make my own version using cookie cups and fresh strawberries.
These cookies are so soft and moist. I love how they are perfectly fudgy along with just the right intensity of chocolate flavor (as to not overpower the peppermint flavor and the cream cheese frosting).
Make little hot cocoa cookie cups using Reese's peanut butter cups inside! This makes them 10x better!
These fun Christmas tree cookies take Christmas sugar cookies to the next level with a super simple frosting technique. They’re light, fluffy, and absolutely delicious!