day 20 – Planning a Cookie Exchange

so, we got the birthday parties and generic parties out of the way, let's look at a more specific party: a cookie exchange.


last year i co-hosted a cookie exchange with my mother in law at our church. i was just itching to do something to connect with the ladies at church, offer my creativity in some way and meet new people. what better thing to do than host a cookie exchange with only three or four weeks until the chosen date?



that's right, nothing.

so, we put our heads together, i found this book and we got to work. over the next few days i will be sharing ways that you can be planning a cookie exchange as well but for today, here is what we ended up with:



coffee and cocoa bar (above) our buffet line (below) i did photos before we set out the food.



as a menu we did little tea sandwiches (cucumber on rye and chicken salad), caramel corn, veggies and cheese and crackers.



i packaged my cookies in old calendar pages that i folded into boxes. i lined them with wax paper and put the cookies in.



we did a voting contest and the prizes were the snowman cookie jars, a set of handmade cards (courtesy of my talented SU! mother in law), a devotional journal from my shop and a prayer planner from my shop.



(above) our cookie display table - we set up a spot for each lady to lay out and display her cookie packaging and we had a small dish to taste-test each cookie. (below) my m-i-l's cookie packages.



here is one of our place-setting stands. we used a variety of cake stands, plates set on bowls and other serving dishes for display. i made a tag for each of the cookie varieties and we laid them out ahead of time so we could easily fill up our table.



at each of the table settings we had little favors for each lady that came (and a couple extra). i found those adorable Reuse Daily cups and made a recipe book of all of the different cookie recipes for them each to have. we topped it off with a wooden mixing spoon.



if you keep following along i am going to be offering free printables for a pile of cookie exchange things as well as talk about the game that we played, what we will be playing this year and things to do and not do. at the end of the week i will also be opening up a cookie exchange give away so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on all of the fun!

have you ever done a cookie exchange -either attended or hosted? what was the best part?