Have you thought about making macarons part of your holiday celebration?

My family is big into making Christmas cookies, but when we are decorating our cut-out cookies... I’m left a little wanting when it comes to the details. For help, I turned to Jen Schroeder, the Union Joints Pastry Chef. They make some beautiful Christmas Cookies at the Union General Store, and here is her advice:1. No matter how you decorate your cookies, remember to have fun, they will all taste great in the end. If you don’t feel like making your own cut-out cookies, you can order some at the Union Joints General Store.

What do “Christmas cookies” mean to you? For me and my family, it is a plethora of different cookies that we only make between Thanksgiving and Christmas. During the Christmas season my family makes five different kinds of cookies: Russian Teacakes, Toffee Squares, Apricot Cookies, Magic Cookie bars, and of course your classic cut-out cookies. Michelle Oliver's Christmas cookies (Copyright 2020 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved.) This year, to get in the Christmas spirit, I have been making one of my family’s Christmas cookies every week.

So Grandma Carr -- God rest her soul -- used to make these Christmas cookies that were so good they had to have been laced with some magic secret ingredient known only to her. I haven’t had a frosted shortbread cookie (with sprinkles) before or since that could touch her recipe. I can still picture that Thom McCann shoebox bursting open, cookies rolling asunder in all directions. “You want the cookies?” I shouted. Have the cookies!”Of course, 35 years later, if I had a time machine I would go back and eat those cookies right off the ground.

If you’ve ever been to a holiday cookie swap, then you know just how intense and daunting they can be.