25 christmas sugar cookie recipes

Traditional German lebkuchen: honey-and-molasses spice cookies studded with citron and nuts, finished with a brushed sugar glaze. A heritage Christmas cookie that gets better as it ages.

Rosettes are delicate Scandinavian fried cookies shaped on a decorative iron, crisp like a wafer and dusted with powdered sugar. A Christmas tradition in Nordic and Midwestern kitchens.

Almond crescent cookies with toasted ground almonds and a tender shortbread base, finished with a chocolate drizzle or powdered sugar dusting. A Christmas cookie tin classic that holds for a week or more.

Mother's Christmas cheese cakes: cream cheese pastry tartlets with two fillings, one pecan-brown sugar and one coconut-vanilla. A classic holiday cookie tin stalwart.

Holiday decorating icing whisks powdered sugar with a splash of milk and a drop of flavor extract into a smooth, pipe-able glaze for outlining, flooding, and drizzling Christmas cookies.

Fattigmann is a Norwegian fried pastry cookie flavored with cardamom or cinnamon, twisted into slit diamonds and crisped in lard. A traditional Scandinavian Christmas treat with powdered sugar.

Jewish rugelach with a flaky cottage cheese dough, apricot jam, cinnamon-sugar, walnuts, and currants rolled into golden crescents. A holiday cookie jar essential for Hanukkah or Christmas.

Rugelach roll flaky cream cheese dough around apricot preserves, cinnamon-brown-sugar, walnuts, and raisins into bite-sized crescents. A classic Jewish bakery cookie for Hanukkah and Christmas alike.

Cucidati, the traditional Sicilian Christmas fig cookies, with a rich filling of figs, raisins, nuts, chocolate and rum wrapped in tender pastry, shaped into slashed horseshoes and dusted with sugar.