I would love to hear what people make! I usually only make a very basic rolled sugar cookie, but I love it when people have all these different types (chocolate pinwheels, knots, rum balls, etc.) I went to a cookie making evening once where we all made different cookies and each went home with a sampling. I think I’m turning into my mom. Or my mom’s mom.
This is more like a fall cookie but I want to make these simply because they are so pretty.
https://www.tastemade.com/videos/fall-leaf-cookie-sandwiches
http://www.southernliving.com/recipes/molasses-crinkles-recipe
These. Yes, we do spritz and all the rest, but these are the only ones I can’t skip. Plus they are cheap to make in bulk. No butter, nuts, chocolate…It’s the only thing I still make with shortening, but I can be partially-hydrogenated once a year, can’t I?
I’m just a chocolate chip girl.
Glazed Anise cookies and date nut roll cookies also Pizzelles. I break out the pizzelle iron once a year.
sugar cookies with a peppermint frosting
But really toffee is my favorite Christmas treat. I make many pounds for gifts each year
My mother made anise cookies. They had to air out and one year she used my bedroom. I hate licorice. She stopped making them.
I had a great aunt who had no children, she used to send cookies to everyone for the holidays. I make three of her recipes. A refrigerator cookie with almonds (very similar to speculatius) and cinnamos, her “secret” cookies which are ground almonds and lots of butter and shaped like crescents, and a ginger cookie. From my mother I have a great vanilla cookie for decorating. (The secret is a bit of orange zest.) I make lemon bars and chocolate krinkles if my sister in law doesn’t bring them to us. And the Gourmet best cookie book’s thumbprint cookies. A disappointing cookbook, but these are delicious.
Am I the only one who prefers moist, chewy, thick bars to flat dry cookies? 
I make a ton of decorative cookies but, like @dragonmom, the molasses (ginger) crinkles are DH and DS hands-down favorites. I roll half of them in red sugar and half in green for holiday effect. My recipe uses oil, though, no shortening. I used to send these by the dozen to DS when he was at boarding school. I send them by the hundreds now that he’s in the army. His Band of Brothers is a bottomless cookie pit.
@ChoatieMom, I’d love to have your recipe since it sounds like they ship well. I bet the oil helps keep them moist during transit. My son is also in the Army and is currently deployed to Afghanistan. I’m definitely in need of some new cookies to send over there.
@GRITS80: These cookies are very crisp, perfect for dunking. If you bake them for less time, they will be chewy, but my family wants the crunch. Here’s the recipe:
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup cooking oil (I use canola)
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
Granulated sugar for rolling
Stir together the first six ingredients (flour-salt) in a bowl and set aside. Combine the remaining ingredients and beat well in a stand mixer. Add the dry ingredients to the beaten mixture, beating well to combine. Dough will form a mass and clear the sides of the mixing bowl. Form one-inch balls and roll in sugar, then place about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 (350 convection) about 12 minutes (less for chewy cookies). Makes about three dozen.
Hint: Pour the cooking oil in a glass measuring cup and then add molasses to the one-cup line. When you pour this out, all of the molasses will completely slip out with the oil, no sticky mess to clean up.
I might be a little heavy-handed with the ginger. 
I love rugelach. Made some last week when a friend asked me to bring a light dessert for dinner. I made some of the more traditional cinnamon/walnut/raisin ones, and also some cherry/almond ones (same dough, just did 2 fillings). They were yummy. I use the dough recipe from the Rose’s Christmas Cookie book, but got the fillings from other sources.
thanks ChoatieMom!!
Cream cheese spritz, iced cutout cookies, molasses cookies, snicker doodles, Andes mint cookies, white chocolate cherry shortbread cookies.
The spritz and cherry shortbread are my personal favorites. The Andes mint cookies go fast.
I make at least 7-8 different types of cookies every Christmas. I like to give them to coworkers. Every year, I try a new recipe so I’ll be following this thread closely and I’ll probably try @ChoatieMom 's Molasses recipe! ! I really enjoy Mexican Wedding Cookies with my cinnamon tea, but my family’s hands down favorite is iced sugar cookies
I make three types of cookies - my sister’s mother-in-law’s fabulous cut out cookies, and two types of Italian cookies.
The Italian cookies are pretty easy to make. The cut outs take effort, which is why my teenage girls make them. =))
They all freeze well, so I usually try to get them done over Thanksgiving.
My SIL gave me the best tip to keep cookies moist. Put a piece of bread in the container with them. The bread dries out first and the cookies stay longer. I don’t know the science behind it, but it works! We love Italian anise cookies and M&M cookies.
Frosted sugar cookies!
I rarely bake anymore with no kids at home. It’s usually just us at Christmas and we don’t need to eat dozens of cookies.
*Anisette. Autocorrected. Glazed Italian Anisette cookies. They don’t taste like licorice. I don’t like licorice either.
No matter how many other cookies I try, my family loves date-nut bars and I have to make and ship many bathes of them. Fortunately they are very easy