When it comes to planning your December events, nothing says holidays like the scent of warm, baked cookies fresh from the oven. The only thing better is eating them! Why not get your friends involved and host a holiday cookie exchange. The benefit of such an event is plenty including leaving the event with a huge variety of sweets to serve throughout the season. Here are some tips for hosting this very festive fête!

Choose your guests. Extend your invitation to those you think well really benefit...busy moms, your neighbors, working singles and those who love to bake. Once you have your guest list numbers, determine a realistic number of cookies for each person to bring. Four to five dozen is a good amount. Encourage RSVPs to figure out well in advance how many cookies will be needed. 

Consider samples. If eating cookies at your swap is going to be part of the festivities, you can ask each guest to bring a plate of their cookies for everyone to sample. They can cut them in half or quarters so they are sample size. 

Decide how the swap part will work. There are two schools of thought: one is to prepackage your cookies in portions that friends can grab and go. Another option is to display all the cookies at once so guests can circulate the room and select which ones they want. 

Add another holiday element. Once the cookies have been swapped you can enhance the party by having a white elephant Christmas party, an ornament exchange or by having each guest bring a donation for a local charity. 

Share the joy. Suggest your guests either bring a copy of the recipe they used, or if you’re so inclined and time permits, you can ask for the recipe in advance. If you choose this route, you can print out each recipe and provide a cute recipe booklet for each guest to take home. 

Provide containers. As a special takeaway for your guests, buy pre-decorated plastic containers, festive cookie tins or get creative and make customized decorate boxes for each person to transport their goodies home in. 

If you are searching for a new home, San Joaquin Valley Homes is still busy building homes throughout the Central Valley. Our model homes are open daily and virtual tours are available on our website for your convenience. Our model hours are Sunday and Monday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visit www.sjvhomes.com for more information.