When I was small holiday cookies consisted principally of slice-and-bake sugar cookies decorated with colored sugar or dipped in dark chocolate. Chocolate helped the taste but even as a kid I could tell they weren't great. Things got more interesting over time as my mom's cooking skills improved and she started trying recipes from women's magazines. Thumbprint cookies--think little Linzer morsels--still make the cut; the recipe for bourbon balls did not. As I learned how to cook I started trying exotic foreign recipes with names I could barely pronounce, even got a spritz gun to make extruded butter cookies (yummy, but not worth the effort in the space I have).

Then one year I tried a recipe for chocolate truffles, and over the years really went off the deep end with chocolate making, making a lot of people very happy. Sadly, time and travel mean no fun with chocolate for the second year in a row, so for the first time in years I'm doing a few batches of cookies to give away. No time for laboriously hand-formed and decorated masterpieces, just going for taste. With planning the prep can be squeezed into odd bits of time, unlike chocolate making.

Right now there's a pan of fruitcake bars in the oven (first time I've tried the recipe but it looks great). I may do a batch of biscotti--pistachio-cherry should look festive. Chocolate is always appropriate so the brownie-recipe-made-into-slice-and-bake-cookies will be included.

What are your traditional cookies? What are your favorites? Two separate categories which may or may not overlap...