mmm brandy
Yer EVIL!

Well, ya know it's Christmas in my house when 12 kids start harassing me about 'cookie night'...and only 3 of them are mine.
Cookie night - My mom used to do this with us and the tradition just carried on.
Objective - To make/decorate cookies and pick 'that special one' to be left out for Santa on Christmas Eve.
Mission, should you choose to accept it - Make a batch of cookie dough. Size of batch dependant on number of children involved. Separate said batch into decent size individual balls of dough and put each one into a plastic sandwich bag. Place in fridge for about 4 hours. (Or freezer if you've forgotten to make it in time

)
Gather up 2 - 4 families of children and their mothers. Designate one house as 'host' (rotated each year). Host supplies non-alco drinks and mini bites for everyone...ie chicken nuggets, chips, pizzas...that kind of stuff. I supply the dough packs for each child, grease proof paper and the Christmas cookie cutters handed down by my own mom. Other moms bring wine (lots of it - how else would we get through the night?), baking sheets, icing in 3 colours (red, green & white...obv), sprinkles and other Christmas themed baking decorations.
The lot of us land at the host house around 5pm on cookie night. First we have the mini bites...and open the first bottle of wine. Then we break the kids down into 3 or 4 children per group, starting with the youngest and work our way up to the oldest. Each child's name is written on a sheet of grease proof. From here, depending on age, you either have to help them or hand them rolling pins and cutters and let em at it. Open the second bottle of wine.
I've the size of the dough balls down to a fine science at this point and each one = enough to fill one baking sheet. When the first group have theirs cut out and on sheets, into the oven they go and call in the next group. By the time the next group is done, the first lot are cooked and chilling on the counter and 2nd lot are in the oven. Call in the next group...and open the 3rd bottle of wine. Trust me, what's coming next will explain the need for the bottles of wine. It's for the benefit of the children...honest.
Now the fun starts. Picture 12 children positioned around a large dining table with their sheets of cookies. All smiles and giggles. Each choosing their 'special cookie' for Santa. Innocent enough, right? Enter into that picture of cuteness...9 bowls of icing positioned around the table so everyone can reach (with a few spoons in each bowl), 4 lots of sprinkles (in the large shaker style containers) spread out around the table. Now then...anyone who has even let ONE child 'at it' in the kitchen, KNOWS the mess about to happen. Times that by 12 and open the next bottle of wine. Thank you very much.
While the kids are busy
trashing the kitchen decorating their cookies, we sit back sipping our wine. No shouts of 'Johnny!!! Don't toss the sprinkles around like that!" or " SARAH!!! Jeez...that's enough icing for THREE cookies, nevermind 1!" Nope, we don't utter a word...apart from, "Isn't this wine lovely?"
When they're done
trashing decorating...it's time for the moms to start the clean up. We've gotten cute over the years. Clean up used to take AGES, until we started using cheap plastic or paper table cloths. Anyway, we send the kids off to play while we open another bottle of wine. (We might have gotten cute about the clean up, but mustn't break tradition with the wine.) Out come the paper plates. Each one with a child's name on it. Transfer cookies from the grease proof to the paper plate and cover with cling film or foil. At this point, the cling film roll can be a bit tricky to operate, so we're probably going with the foil. Of course, using foil for 12 plates causes another problem which we never discover until the children come tearing into the kitchen. Enter a chorus of "Which one is mine?". Feck. Now we have to open another bottle of wine to get us through the 'sorting of the plates'. At this point, we've given up on 'individual' and go for the 'family' theme. Each mom is responsible for putting her family's plates in a spot she'll hope to remember later.
Once the clean up is done, we phone the husbands to let them know it's time to collect us. They used to say we were using 'Cookie Night' as an excuse for a piss up amongst the women...until we offered to let them take charge of it. Now they just drop and collect with a smile on their face and don't utter a negative word between them. Anyway, while we wait for them to arrive, we open another bottle of wine...to celebrate our survival of the annual 'Cookie Night'.