222 holiday cookie recipes

Checkerboard cookies, a visually striking shortbread-style cookie with alternating vanilla and chocolate squares. An impressive icebox cookie for holiday tins.

Rosette cookies fried on a decorative iron with a thin egg-and-milk batter, dusted with powdered sugar. Crisp, lacy Scandinavian holiday cookies with a delicate snowflake shape.

Lele Party Cookies are thumbprint cookies rolled in egg white and chopped nuts, then filled with colorful jelly. A buttery, nutty holiday cookie perfect for Christmas trays.

Traditional German Spekulatius Christmas cookies spiced with cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves, made with ground almonds and butter. Thin, crisp, and warmly spiced, these are a holiday cookie tin essential.

Butter ball cookies (Russian tea cakes) with ground walnuts, cake flour, butter, and vanilla rolled in powdered sugar twice. A melt-in-your-mouth holiday cookie with just five ingredients.

Pumpkin squares blend canned pumpkin with mincemeat, nutmeg, and allspice in a tender bar cookie, then frost with cream cheese icing. A holiday cookie tray showstopper.

Fruit ginger drop cookies made with gingerbread mix, candied fruit, and chopped nuts. A 4-ingredient holiday cookie ready in 25 minutes.

Cranberry walnut pinwheel cookies with a brown sugar filling, orange zest, and ground cranberries. A make-ahead slice-and-bake holiday cookie.

Florentine sandwich cookies: lacy crisp oat wafers held together with melted milk chocolate. Brittle, buttery, and made for the holiday cookie tin.

Crisp Italian pizzelle cookies with cocoa and cinnamon pressed into lacy, wafer-thin rounds. A chocolate twist on the classic holiday wafer cookie.

Chocolate hazelnut raspberry thumbprints: chocolate-cocoa cookies rolled with ground toasted hazelnuts, indented and filled with raspberry jam. Three dozen elegant holiday cookies.

Mince-meat cookies made with a tender cake flour dough rolled thin, filled with cooked mincemeat, and sandwiched together. A vintage holiday filled cookie that makes 36.

Cream filbert cookies with a whole hazelnut hidden inside each shortbread ball, glazed in vanilla icing and rolled in sugar. Vintage Pacific Northwest holiday cookie with a sweet crackly finish.

Crispy vanilla rosettes fried on a decorative iron, then dipped in vanilla icing. Scandinavian holiday cookies that look like edible snowflakes. Yields 12 cookies.

Raisin-spice cookies made with oatmeal cookie mix, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, raisins, and chopped nuts. A quick drop cookie with warm holiday spices that makes four dozen in under 30 minutes.

Sandbakelse, traditional Scandinavian butter cookies with cardamom, pressed into mini tart tins and filled with jam. Delicate, sandy-textured holiday cookies dusted with powdered sugar.