126 holiday cookie recipes

No-bake butterscotch haystacks coat corn flakes in melted butterscotch and peanut butter, then fold in mini chocolate chips. Crispy, sweet-salty, and freezer-stable. A 20-minute holiday cookie that needs no oven.

Baked fig and raisin pudding with crumbled waffle cookies, cocoa, walnuts, and warm spices, cooked in a water bath. A rich, old-fashioned holiday dessert served warm with hard sauce.

Lemon poinsettia cookies decorate buttery lemon shortbread with cream cheese spread, sliced strawberries, and mint leaves arranged like holiday flowers.

Lemon roll-out cookies with sour cream in the dough for a tender crumb, brushed with lemon juice and sprinkled with sugar before baking. The bright citrusy cookie cutter staple for any holiday tray.

Buttery rolled sugar cookies with lemon zest and vanilla, made with cake flour for a melt-in-your-mouth tender crumb. A classic cut-out cookie recipe that's ideal for decorating and holiday baking.

Star-shaped chocolate sandwich cookies cut from a chewy cocoa-and-chip sheet bake, then filled with sweet cream cheese frosting. A festive holiday cookie that looks fancy but skips the rolled-dough fuss.

Chocolate-filled ravioli cookies are sweet pasta-shaped pillows with a crushed chocolate-walnut filling, sealed with fork tines and brushed warm with honey. The Italian-American holiday cookie that doubles as edible art.

Kolachkies are flaky Polish cream cheese cookies with thumbprint centers filled with apricot jam. A buttery holiday tradition that melts in your mouth.

Slice-and-bake Swedish coconut cookies with golden edges and a buttery, tender crumb. Shape the dough into logs, chill, slice thin, and bake. Makes a whopping 8 dozen from one batch. Ideal for holiday cookie swaps.

Classic springerle: traditional German anise cookies embossed with intricate designs, dried overnight, and baked pale, then mellowed for a week into crisp, picture-perfect holiday treats.

Soft chocolate drop cookies packed with maraschino cherries and topped with a glossy chocolate frosting. Buttermilk keeps them tender. Makes 4 to 5 dozen in about 30 minutes, so they're built for holiday cookie trays and bake sales.

Mandel-Halbmonde are German almond crescents: buttery shortbread cookies shaped like half-moons, baked pale, then rolled twice in powdered sugar. The kind of melt-in-your-mouth Christmas cookie every German bakery puts on the holiday plate.

Spiced cherry biscotti studded with candied cherries and almonds, warmed with nutmeg, and dusted with cinnamon-nutmeg sugar. A ruby-flecked holiday coffee cookie.

Patty Ann's cheese cake tarts: bite-size cream cheese pastry shells with two fillings, pecan and coconut. Muffin-tin desserts for holiday cookie trays.

Irish cream balls combine crushed vanilla wafers, toasted pecans, cocoa, and Irish cream liqueur into no-bake boozy bites rolled in powdered sugar. The grown-up holiday cookie tray staple.

Kiss cookies tuck a whole chocolate kiss inside a buttery walnut shortbread, baked until just set and rolled in powdered sugar. Crack one open and the melty chocolate middle is the payoff. An easy holiday cookie that keeps for days.