Pappas arranges the recipes into four sections: traditional cookies, family favorites, gift cookies and party cookies. Though each section contains standbys, the highlight is Pappas' gift for presenting ideas and recipes not everyone will have heard of. Most of us know that gingerbread (page 28) is traditional at the holidays, but did you know about the traditions of springerle (page 22), peppernuts (page 31), or Viennese bells (page 36)? Sugar cookies (page 40) and spritz (page 42, if you can lay your hands on your cookie press) and are de rigeur for holiday baking, but why not incorporate lemon wafers (page 45) or pepparkakor (page 44)? And whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, the Solstice or just calories, don't forget to put together a tray of coconut-orange macaroons (page 89).

Is there any other cookie that symbolizes the holiday season, in shape and look, than a cookie shaped like a star? It has that Christmas look, and it's a cookie you'd want to hang on your tree as much as eat it.

I scoured the web and found a punch of different star cookie recipes for you to try this holiday. I tried to get a mix of different flavors and different colors. If you find anymore, please let us know in the comments.

1. Christmas Star Cookies. These are from BrightIdeas.com and utilizes red and green M&Ms (you'll find them at the supermarket this time of year) for that festive look.

OK, there are still a couple of days to celebrate this holiday week, and it goes along well with National Cookie Day (two days ago) and our Cookie A Day marathon (all this month). Here are some interesting shapes from The Cookie Cutter Shop. I like the martini glass.

Here's a question: what's the oddest cookie cutter you've ever made cookies with? Beyond the usual Christmas shapes, gingerbread men, Halloween pumpkins, and stars?

• A treasure trove of cookie ideas for Christmas, including Double Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, Pistachio Torrone, Orange Cardamom Cookies, Meringue Stars, and Cinnamon Palmiers.
• How to make 3-D cookie ornaments for your tree.
• A Hannukkah menu, featuring finger foods.
• Some comforting dishes for winter, including Baked French Toast, Rosemary Pork Chops, and Winter Herb Pasta.
• You can use cinnamon is so many recipes.
• More recipes: Crab Bisque, Wilted Spinach with Nutmeg Butter, Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding, and Gin Rickeys.
• Also in the December issue: Christmas in Tpoztlan, a guide to making great cupcakes, the story of Kobe beef, winning over a fussy French watier, and Marge, the cutting edge cow.

Is it too late to make another batch of Christmas cookies this year? Dessert First's Cranberry-Cherry Icebox Ribbons are just gorgeous. The recipe originally came from The All-American Cookie Book, which is a great source for recipes for all occasions and at all levels of difficulty, from dropped cookies, like chocolate chip, to more elaborately shaped ones. These cookies fall in between the two extremes, although they are certain to impress with their looks, as well as with their flavor. The cookies have layers of shortbread-like butter cookie dough sandwiching layers of dried cranberry and cherry preserves. The thing that makes them much easier than they look is that the cookies are icebox cookies, meaning that the dough is assembled and frozen, then the individual cookies are sliced off of a larger log when you are ready to bake. No shaping is necessary and the resulting cookies are still picture-perfect. Different fillings can be substituted for the cranberry/cherry combination, so look for your favorite seasonal jams to complement the cookie.

By now, with all of our Christmas cookies recipes - Gingersnaps (two ways!), Cranberry, Orange & Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies and Chocolate Peppermint Drops - your cookie plate is going to look very appealing when you put it out with a nice variety for Santa on Christmas Eve. But Christmas just isn't quite right unless you get to spend some time decorating cookies. Not only is it a great creative outlet, but you get to eat the results.

Rather than opt for the traditional gingerbread men with royal icing, especially in light of the fact that I made gingery cookies last week, I opted to make some of my favorite Vanilla Cutout Cookies. These cookies are soft, but not cake-like, and are very easy to make. They use both butter and buttermilk in dough, both of which add a richness to the cookie, and vanilla extract with a touch of almond to keep the flavor bright. As always, I recommend using a very high quality vanilla extract or something even more vanilla-y, such as vanilla bean crush or vanilla paste to boost the vanilla flavor.

Gingersnaps are snappy in both name and flavor, even though they are not always as crispy as the name seems to promise that they will be. To honor both types of cookies in our ongoing Christmas Cookie of the Week feature, I have two recipes for gingersnaps: one crisp and one soft.

The crisp cookie is from a recipe that has been circulating around the blogs for about 2 years now and it comes from Chez Panisse, though it was originally posted by Renee of feeding dexygus seconds. The cookies are very thin and each piece of dough is sliced off a frozen brick, so the cookies turn out in an unusual rectangular shape. They are buttery, flavorful and, due to the fact that they are extremely light, they are very addictive.

The second recipe is for chewy, soft gingersnap cookies. I spotted this recipe and was immediately attracted to its simplicity and the fact that it uses part whole wheat flour, since it never hurts to get a couple extra nutrients in during the holidays. The cookies are moist and surprisingly satisfying. I used pearl sugar to finish them off, but you can use any coarse sugar to create a nice, crisp top.

I have a fondness for Little Debbie. She has helped me through many a night when I had a craving for something sweet and sugary. I once had a dinner that consisted of Little Debbie brownies and Diet Coke.

Every year around this time the company comes out with Christmas-shaped snacks (if snacks can be "shaped" like Christmas). I don't mean they're shaped like Christ, I mean they're shaped like Christmas trees (there are other snacks as well, including cookies). The white trees are yellow cake covered in a white frosting, and on a scale of 1 to 10 they get an 8.

The green trees are brownies that are covered with a green glaze (to give it that tree look) and colored sprinkles (for the lights and decorations). My roommate loves the white cakes, but he finds the brownies to taste too "fake" and "chemical-ey." Now, I don't know if chemical-ey is a word, but I think that's exactly what makes them so good! They're kinda addictive, and unlike a lot of brownies, they're always incredibly moist and chewy.

The first time I caught a glimpse of a recipe like this one was in a magazine a couple of years ago. At least, it was the first time that this flavor combination made an impression on me. At that time, Plugra, the higher-fat European style butter, was really becoming a trend in baking and I was slightly more inclined to try recipes that specifically called for it to see if there was a significant difference between it and regular butter. A few batches of cookies later and I wasn't completely sold on the butter, but I was sold on the cookie recipe. That first recipe only had orange and cranberry set into a light and buttery cookie and, compared to the usual holiday array of nut and spice-laden cookies, it was a revelation: bright, buttery and sweet. Over time, I lost track of that original recipe, switched to ordinarily butter (although it is fine to use one like Plugra, if you like) and added some dark chocolate chips to the cookies so that there would be something in them to satisfy every cookie-lover.

It's time to break out the flour, cookbooks and parchment paper and start doing some holiday baking. Aside from an increase in the amount of red and green sprinkles used for decorating, there isn't anything that really separates a Christmas cookie from a regular cookie, but there are some seasonal flavors that are going to be a bit more prevalent in these seasonal treats. This month, we're going to put up a new Christmas cookie recipe every week that will hopefully inspire you to bake a little bit before December 25h. Our first cookie recipe is for Chocolate Peppermint Drops.

These cookies have a deep, dark chocolate flavor and a moist texture, like a soft and slightly chewy brownie. In fact, they look just like little brownies. They taste very decadent and rich, so make sure to have a glass of milk or a cup of coffee at the ready to wash them down. The peppermint flavor comes from crushed up peppermint candies, although Andes mints or chopped up peppermint bark would make an excellent substitution.

• First off, does Ray have to be on the cover of every issue, like Oprah? We get it from the name, it's her mag. She's everywhere nowadays, even on the box of Triscuits I bought the other night.
• We've had a lot of posts about Christmas cookies this week, and Ray has some more recipes, including No-Bake Mocha BonBons and Cinnamon Cornmeal Wafers.
• What do you eat on Christmas morning when you open presents? How about some Swedish Coffee Bread? Or maybe some Mini Turkey and Egg Casseroles, or some Berries with Maple Cream?
• Spicy Maple Walnuts might make for a good, quick snack for the kids.
• Don't forget your dog this Christmas season.
• Mmmm...Chai Eggnog.
• You can buy Rachael's Christmas album (see? I told you she's everywhere.)
• Actress/singer Kristin Chenoweth loves Chik-Fil-A! (Side note: she's the inspiration for the Harriet Hayes character on Studio 60).
• More recipes: Roasted Pork Tenderloin, Coconut Yule Log with Meringue Mushrooms, Italian Cheesecake, and a Spinach-Artichoke Dip.

Cookies and milk left out for Santa is Christmas Eve tradition that I like to follow in the event that Santa stops by and wants a snack as he travels the world delivering presents. I even set aside a few of the prettier cookies I decorated a day or two before to make sure I have some to leave out. Of course, he doesn't usually seem too interested in the cookies and I end up eating them myself on Christmas morning. Cookies left out overnight can, in my opinion, be deemed "leftovers" and, thus, are appropriate breakfast food.  USA Today says that 48% of people who leave snacks for Santa leave both cookies and milk. I am among the 29% that only leaves cookies, not because I believe Santa is lactose intolerant, as the makers of Lactaid would have me believe, but because milk left out overnight is not very appetising in the morning. If he didn't eat the cookies, Santa probably wasn't very thirsty anyway.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

The article from Saveur seduced me with its tale of thousands of cookies baked around the clock in the small town of Solebury, Pennsylvania. Trinity Church, an Episcopal parish, raises about $1,700 each year through its 20,000-cookie bakefest. But better than the money was the idea... grandmothers and little boys and single parishioners all working together to mix, roll, bake and box the buttery cookies made from recipes handed down for generations.

How could I resist? So two years ago I tried this recipe when I bought a Costco bag of walnuts and needed to use them up. Ever since I've been buying walnuts, nutmeg and cinnamon specifically for this recipe. These cookies satisfy my longing for spicy, crispy, nutty treats - and they're protein packed and low-net carb, to boot. I eat them for breakfast throughout December.