We are in the throes of planning our family’s third annual holiday cookie decorating extravaganza.

Fussy holiday parties are not my thing. I don’t know how to make hors d’ouvres (I’m not even sure I’m spelling it right!). I don’t like wearing frou-frou holiday sweaters. And I really believe that Christmas can be a very fun time for kids – and as adults, we just need to let them in on some of the holiday fun.

For the past three years, our family has hosted a holiday cookie decorating party that is as much fun for me as it is for my kids and their friends. First, I bake hundreds (yes, HUNDREDS) of sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies. For the sugar cookies, because I’m making so many, I often use a mix. My gingerbread cookies, on the other hand, are made using my favorite holiday cookie recipe.

We invite the kids in the neighborhood (and then some!) over, requesting each one bring something to decorate cookies with – frosting, sprinkles, candies, you name it. I cover my table with either a paper tablecloth or garbage bags (no one really cares about the decor!), pile all the fixings on top, and let the kids go crazy.

While they smear their cookies with icing (we use wooden popsicle sticks rather than knives), I stand back with my camera and snap pictures as well as help keep track of whose cookies are whose. And by the time the kids are ready to go home each of them has accumulated a bag of festive holiday cookies to take with them.

Clean up is a snap: I throw away the makeshift tablecloths, I put away the sprinkles until next year and I vacuum up any stray sprinkles (yes, there’s usually a lot – but two swoops with the vacuum and it’s a distant memory). It’s definitely one of my favorite holiday traditions with my family.