For as long as I can remember, Christmas/the holidays equaled the scent of freshly baked sugar cookies, hazelnut crescents, babovka (Czech pound cake), vanocka (a Czech challah-esque braided sweet bread popular during Christmas), and apple strudel among other confections baked by my Czech grandmother. Every year I would help her bake an assortment of cookies some of which would get dipped in chocolate then bedazzled with a single blanched almond, some would receive a dollop of her homemade apricot or plum jam then topped with an additional cookie to create a tiny sweet sandwich, others would be filled with a chocolate custard, the designs, decorations, and cookie compositions were endless. Half of these mini artworks were then divided between newly purchased mugs from The Museum of Modern Art, and finally wrapped in translucent plastic with pretty colorful ribbons added to spruce it up and tie everything together. Those individual packages became office presents for my mother's work colleagues, lucky recipients! Each year we make tons of cookies. Half the remaining cookies were plated for household consumption, and the last half would become Christmas tree ornaments. Not only did the ornaments end up looking beautiful on the tree, but they were fun to make, and eat! The perfect holiday activity.

Edible Arts and Crafts: Making your own tree ornaments is incredibly easy and you really just need a sugar cookie recipe and some creativity. When we made our ornaments we would sometimes use round cookie cutters to cut a circle, then use a second smaller round shape to cut a second hole in the same cookie and, once baked, slide a colorful ribbon through the cookie hole, tie the ribbon ends together, and use that to hang the cookie on the tree. Another option would be to not add the cookie hole. In that case, once the cookie was baked we would just tie a ribbon around the entire cookie then tie the ribbon ends together to create a loop to hang.

As far as decorating is concerned, the sky's the limit. You can outline the cookie in white icing, dip in chocolate, add colorful sprinkles, you get the idea. Tip: You don't need to stick with sugar cookies. They do happen to provide a nice white base for decorating, however a festive gingerbread recipe would work just as well.

Below you will find several different sugar cookie recipes. Use one listed below or use your own, just add a healthy dose of creativity, a pretty ribbon, and you'll end up with a beautiful, sweet-smelling, tasty tree!

·No Empty Chairs: Sugar Cookies

·Between Courses: Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

·Pink Lemonade: Sugar Cookie Couture

·A Good Appetite: Brown Butter Sugar Cookies

·Foodzilla: Candy Cane Cookies

·Love and Olive Oil: Gingerbread Cookies