Speaking of Parties...

Cookies and Christmas just go together! There's peppermint cookies, sugar cookies, gingerbread men, spraetzles? jammies, and those peanut butter cookies with the Hershey kisses on top. Just so many wonderful yummies! With so many cookies, some people have Christmas cookie parties - decorating parties, baking parties, exchanges, recipe swaps, etc. My neighbors do a cookies & beer exchange party. Bring 3 dozen cookies, take 3 dozen cookies or so. And they give out prizes. Last year I won! I found a place that makes edible pictures and I put characters from my books on cookies!

I also love going to a My Favorite Things party where we each bring 5 of our favorite things and go away with 5 new things. I'm bringing book lights and foot cream - for a soothing night ritual.

And neighborhood New Year's Eve parties are the best. Usually we get to bring the kids who run around in the basement while the adults socialize upstairs with the food. Ahh. Ring in the new year right, then walk home! We used to have it at our house when the boys were younger, now we let others have the joy of hosting.

How do you celebrate? What little favorite things would you share? And what goodies do you like to bring to parties?