The holiday season is upon us and, as the days grow colder, baked goods are the perfect sugary treat! Many families, especially those with little ones, spend time together concocting the perfect (or at least tasty) dessert for their celebrations, and cookies are often at the top of the list! Here are a few tactful tips for decorating your confections this year.

1. Form an assembly line! Chances are you are baking more than one sheet’s worth of cookies, and dividing roles keeps the production moving. Just make sure you assign someone to keep an eye on the oven!

2. If kids are a part of your baking crew, decorating duty is probably their job of choice. But watch the sprinkles — those shakers can be a little too effective for their own good. Put tape over half the holes in your sprinkle shakers to control how much comes out at once…and to minimize the clean up later.

3. Want an easy dessert option? Grab a bag of snaps (square-shaped pretzels,) M&Ms, and some Rolos or Hershey’s Kisses for a simple but delicious “cookie.” Stick a Rolo or Kiss on top of each pretzel and soften them in the oven. Once the chocolate is soft — but not melted– place an M&M on each and press gently down.

4. Do not forget the cookie cutters! There is no end to the shapes and sizes. From cutters passed down from grandparents to custom-made shapes (yes, there is a website for that!), you can bake cookies in whatever form your heart desires. If you have them lying around, even clean Play-Doh cookie cutters can work in a pinch. Just remember to use at least one small cookie cutter to get as much as you can out of your dough!

5. Want to get extra creative? Mix and match the cookie cutters you already have! Last year saw the creation of an ingenious new method. If you have a certain small, angel-shaped cookie cutter, cutting the resulting shape in half leaves the cookie looking suspiciously similar to Baby Yoda…

6. Never skimp on the egg wash, cooking spray, or flour! Dough can get surprisingly sticky, and you do not want to pull a snowman-shaped cookie off the pan only to leave its head behind. Flour can get messy, but your cookies will be a lot messier if you do not fully coat your rolling pin and work surface!

7. Perhaps most important is this time-honored rule: whoever does not help bake must clean up. Do not get left alone with the dirty dishes!

8. Last but not least, make sure to eat as many cookies as you can while they are fresh out of the oven. Everyone knows they taste better that way (as long as you do not burn your tongue!). Plus, the more you eat, the fewer cookies you will have to put away when you are finished.

Happy baking!