HOSTING A COOKIE EXCHANGE!

This past weekend I hosted my first cookie exchange! I invited 8 friends and their daughters over for a fun night of snacking on cookies. The little girls loved tasting all the cookies (my favorites were the ones who took one of each cookie to try...their plates were piled high with cookies!) and had such a fun time playing afterwards.



I wrote a post on planning a cookie exchange HERE if you'd like to read about the planning part of the party!

The day of the exchange, we set up the party in the morning. We used the cutest Merry Christmas banner as the backdrop. I brought two mini tabletop trees from the girls bedroom for added decor. We had mini candy canes (minty and fruity!) and some of our bottle-brush trees as well. We filled up small bottles with milk, because, well milk and cookies are perfect together!

With all the sugar I knew we would be consuming, I opted for a few savory treats to snack on as well. We had bean dip and chips, artichoke dip and pitas, popcorn and mandarin oranges. Coffee, tea and wine for adults!

I wanted to send the little girls to go home with something cute to remember the party by. I finally decided on some adorable hair tie favors from the Plum Polkadot. They were packaged so well and I loved that I could customize them. We went with the merry and bright holiday words and cookie exchange 2017. Maddie and Ellie loved the ones with the snowflakes - and especially that you could wear them as a bracelet and hair elastic.

I did a simple place setting for the kids and each pink plate got one set of elastics. We kept the rest of the decor really simple - white cake stands to display the cookies. Half of the cake stands were  ones I owned, and I borrowed the rest from another party loving friend. I made simple pink place cards for each cake stand so guests could write the kind of cookie they brought and their own name. This also helped with voting - as it was easy to identify the cookie with the maker.

I ended up choosing 3 categories for the voting! Prettiest cookie, most creative and fan favorite. I made some simple prizes of mini spatulas, cookie cutters and adorable sprinkles. (See HERE for that post!)

The girls were filled with excitement all day and couldn't wait to see their friends and taste the cookies. I allowed them to try one of the cookies we made so I could get a few snaps of them in their Holiday outfits. Unfortunately, once all the other little friends arrived, we lost all our natural lighting and I didn't get a single picture that wasn't blurry. Haha, go figure!

We can't wait to make this an annual tradition - such a fun idea with the loveliest ladies.

When the ladies all arrived and set up their cookies, everything looked sooo good! I loved the variety we got - they were all such good bakers! We had everything from Christmas cookies, shortbread, ginger tree, macaroons, jam thumbprints, sprinkle cookies, orange chocolate chip, stained glass cookies, scotch cookies, vanilla/chocolate pinwheels & raspberry linger cookies

And you can never go wrong with shortbread cookies! These were the fan favorite!

Those circle cookies on the right won for prettiest cookie! My friend Coleen had red, yellow and green candy centers. They looked beautiful! And you know what the candy part was? Melted rolly ranchers! So genius!

These adorable scotch cookies won for most creative!

Cookie exchange parties really are so great. The best part is that everyone goes home with some super tasty cookies you can share! (Or you're free to keep them to yourself if you like too. I won't tell!) I ended up putting out some items that worked really well for packaging up cookies - assorted cupcake liners, small paper bowls, clear cello bags, ribbon, washi tape and gift tags. I also went to my local grocery store and asked if I could take a few clear boxes. (The ones you can find in the bakery department) They were kind enough to say yes!

These are what the adorable elastics look like from the Plum Polkadot on! So cute as little bracelets and perfect for keeping hair out of their faces! Cute unicorn bracelet by RachelRainbow

The ladies and I packed up our cookies in our large boxes, and finished it all off with a bow. The hardest part now is to keep little hands out of the cookie container. Obviously we're still working on that one!

I packed some up and froze them in separate containers (so the different flavors didn't mix) and cant wait to bring them our when we have company over or want a quick dessert.

Hope this posts inspires you to have your own cookie exchange party!

BANNER dixie and twine
PINK LETTERBOARD 3potato4
HAIR ELASTIC SETS plum polka dot
GIRLS DRESSES target
GIRLS NECKLACES coral and cloud
GIRLS KNEES SOCKS petite littles
MADDIES BOW paliandpaper
ELLIES BOW dainty mae co
GIRLS WOOD BRACELET rachel rainbow
MINI SPATULAS superstore
COOKIE CUTTER homesnse
SPRINKLES sweetapolita
CAKE STANDS various and borrowed from friends