Is there anything as special as spending time with your kids during the holiday season? You can create memories doing just about anything, but nothing is as warm and familiar as a bout of holiday baking. Watching the little ones frost a cookie while singing along to their favorite Christmas tunes, or relishing the brief moment of silence as everyone tucks into a cupcake; these moments all happen while huddled around the kitchen table, and they can quickly become holiday traditions for your family in no time at all.
Kids love helping in the kitchen—from stirring wet ingredients to whisking homemade frosting, they can have a small (and supervised!) hand in baking prep. And the real fun happens when you watch them decorate cookies, cakes, and cupcakes using everyday kitchen tools under a watchful eye. Not all classic holiday recipes are simple enough to have kids gathered in the kitchen, but this curated collection of sweet and savory treats are all straightforward enough for anyone to manage. While some of the following recipes are best made together as a family, you can rest easy knowing that most of these ideas are kid-friendly in nature. It may be the one time that you let their creativity shine in the kitchen, after all!
A few of these ideas may already be tradition in your household, such as sipping on homemade hot chocolate by the fire, or making gingerbread to leave out for Santa at midnight. Others may seem novel in their own right, and aren't exactly meant to be eaten, like our project for stained-glass cookie ornaments that you can actually hang inside. We even have a snowflake-themed dinner idea in our snowflake quesadilla recipe. Whichever direction you choose, these easy recipes and projects don't require a shopping trip or days on end—get the whole family started on these fun holiday treats right now.
