Something I try to do every year is decorate Halloween cookies with kids. Now that mine are mostly older, it’s nice to branch out and decorate with our good friend’s kids. This year is no exception. Life has been busy lately, let’s be real—it’s not all sunshine and roses. I had actually forgotten about cookies. Yeah, I felt shitty. Our friend tagged me in a social media post quoting his little guy “Halloween means we get to go to Josie’s and decorate cookies”. He’s right. So, we found a night that worked out. Tonight, was that night. We had our own kiddo (13) and two more of our extended family. All boys of course. Story of my life, LOL.
It may seem silly to others, decorating cookies being a thing. I can clearly remember decorating Christmas cookies with my mom every year. Clearly Cameron remembers decorating with me. I carried this tradition over to decorating with my son when he was little.
I am not including a recipe. I use the Betty Crocker Rolled Cookies recipe. Google it. It’s age-old tested and proven. Don’t fix what isn’t broke—isn’t that what they say. Actually, for Christmas one year my mom had the recipe from the cookbook printed and gave to us kids with some of the cookie cutters from our childhood. One of the best gifts ever.
So. Instead of a recipe, here are some tips for decorating cookies with kids.
- Make it FESTIVE and FUN!
- Know your audience. I don’t put out too many decorating options, it can be overwhelming for the littles. When the ladies and I are decorating Xmas cookies, yeah, tons of options. We can handle it (with drinks of course)
- When doing the cut-outs, I make sure I have equal numbers of each shape for each kid. For example, 4 coffins, 4 gravestones, 8 ghosts, etc.
- When I say 4, I am including a plate for myself to decorate. Get in there and do this WITH them! It is so fun and rewarding—sounds cheesy and cliché but it’s true. Enjoy these memories with your littles.
- I get all of the icing containers open and ready to go. Kids have short attention spans. If they have to sit there and watch you cut the tip off every container or plastic protector wrap, they will get bored. Bored kids mean trouble.
- Instead of putting a full container of each type of sprinkle, I put out little bowls. If you put the full container you are asking for cookies with a full bottle of sprinkles dumped on. This way they can grab with fingers and sprinkle. They are going to have enough of a sugar high with this. Let’s not make it more than it needs to be.
- I put a cheap, plastic table cloth down first. This will save you some major cleanup. I didn’t always do this. And honestly, I didn’t mind the cleanup because we had so much fun. But why?
- Use disposable plastic knives for spreading icing. How many times do you just need plastic forks or spoons and get a ton of knives left over? Save them for shit like this.
- Have something besides sugar for kiddos to snack on. This evening we made individual pizzas. Some with leftover homemade bread, some with Texas toast. This is another great use for my special homemade pasta sauce. No recipe on that today. You will have to stay tuned for that deliciousness!
Update: We accomplished the pizzas, cookies and a couple rounds of Hide and Seek within an hour and a half. Boys are watching Monster House. Good to have multiple options for short attention spans.
Picture overload here! I can’t decide on which to share or not share.
