As I noted earlier, we hosted a cookie-decorating (and ugly Christmas sweater) party last week to kick off December (see party detritus above). In advance, Chuckie, Liz and I made over 100 sugar cookies to be decorated at the party, using the recipes from the December issue of Martha Stewart Living (the recipes don't seem to be online). Half of the cookies were traditional vanilla sugar cookies and half chocolate. Additionally, we mixed up large batches of a simple royal icing (well, powdered sugar and milk with a little vanilla, mixed until "right") and dyed it in a rainbow of colors to promote the creativity of the partygoers.
Here's the result of our efforts! If you look closely, you'll see that they ranged from the traditional to the anatomically correct, from basketball players to horror movie characters, from football helmets to PBR labels. Plus, there were some traditionally decorated ones in there, too!
