Getting ready for Christmas

Ok, so I know we just celebrated Halloween and seeing as the mall was decorated for Christmas already when we went trick-or-treating and Santa is coming this Saturday to the mall, everyone is pushing the holiday, but there are a few things I like to do early. I'm not big on early shopping, well truth be told, my hubby does almost all of the Christmas shopping. The only thing I buy is the clothes.

But, since I make a ton of cookies and other goodies (read candy), I usually start making my cookie dough around now and freeze the dough, then around Thanksgiving I start baking and it's so much easier.

To give you an idea of what I make, here's the list:

1. Oatmeal Cookies
2. Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
3. Chocolate Chip Cookies
4. Snickerdoodles
5. Raisin Molasses Gems
6. Butter Cookies
7. Scottish Shortbread
8. Pizzelles (if I have the time)
9. Milk Chocolate-Pretzel clusters
10. White Chocolate-Pretzel clusters
11. Chocolate-Coconut Haystacks
12. White Chocolate-Coconut Haystacks
13. Buckeyes
14. White Chocolate covered marshmallows
15. Milk Chocolate covered Marshmallows
16. Milk Chocolate covered plain oreos
17. Milk Chocolate covered peanut butter oreos
18. Milk Chocolate covered chocolate oreos
19. White chocolate popcorn clusters
20. Milk Chocolate popcorn clusters

So, as you can see I need to start early. I really enjoy doing this and I give away this stuff every year to my hairdresser and I send in a tray or 2 to my hubby's work. I really need a good macaroon recipe, I like the ones that are like cookies and have never found a good recipe. I do make sugar cookies but I buy the dough, again I've never found a recipe I really liked. So, I will post some cookie recipes over the next few weeks.

What do you do ahead for the holidays?