Christmas Cookie Decorating Trends 2022

Our busiest decorated cookie season is in full swing, and lately I have noticed that people like to start buying their cookies earlier than years before.  

So if you were thinking of starting to make your cookies closer to Christmas, I would recommend to start as soon as you can and have some cookies handy for the early birds. 

Normally decorated cookies have a very good shell life, you can start baking your cookies now and after they cool down you can put them in a big cellophane bag or in an air tight sealed container. 

Also you can use this cute little bear, named Fox Run Terracota Brown Sugar Bear,  that will help keep your cookies fresh for longer, you just need to put it in the same container as your cookies.

I also like to have royal icing ready beforehand and when I need to decorate some cookies I just prepare the consistencies and tint it in the colors I will need. 

Now let me tell you what are some of the trends on decorated cookies for this Holiday:

Cookie Decorating Kits

Cookie decorating kits are very popular, in particular for Christmas parties. One thing that you will have to consider is who will be decorating those cookies. If the cookie decorating kits are for kids, try to make simple shapes or stamped cookies, so the kids can have a guide on how to decorate the cookies. For the icing, don't go very fancy on the meringue powder you will use to make it, because normally the cookies will be eaten before the icing gets hard. Also just one consistency will be enough, I like to use the magic consistency for the kid's kits and tint it in fun colors and put a lot, I mean a lot of sprinkles, the kids LOVE sprinkles, especially the mixed sprinkles. 

The mixed sprinkles you can make on your own. Michaels offers a great variety of sprinkles, just before you go shopping make up your mind in what color scheme you will make your mix, if not you will go crazy with so many options. 

If you are going to make the cookie decorating kits for adults, you can make more intricate shapes of cookies and it will be good to use a fancier meringue powder. Try to make medium and flooding consistency icings, the medium consistency icing for outlining in a natural color and at least 3 tinted flooding consistency icing pastry bags.

Don't forget to add a little cards with instructions on how to decorate and preserve the cookies. 

Paint Your Own (PYO) Cookies

These cookies are a hit all the time, there are three different ways for how you can make the PYO cookies. One is that you will put the watercolor palette on the cookies, here is a tutorial for this kind. Click here

Another one is to make two cookies, one with the drawing and one for the watercolor palette. For the water color palettes I put the food gel color directly on the iced cookie. 

And last but not least you can use edible ink printed watercolor swatches, these are very fancy, not too expensive and the cookies will look very nice and neat. 

For the drawings you can use stencils or if you are good with drawing you can have fun making cute Holiday drawings once the royal icing is completely dry.  You can use edible markers, an airbrush tool or edible spray paint.

Remember that you will need to put a little brush and instructions on how to decorate these cookies, on Etsy you can find great options and you can also find brushes at the dollar store. 

Itsy-Bitsy Christmas Cookies

This is another huge trend, they are really cute, they have less calories, they are more affordable and if you will ship them you can use First class mail instead of Priority mail.   I really love to make this kind of cookie, my kitchen does not get too messy and you can put your creativity in action. 

Sweet Treats Boards

This is the sweet version of a charcuterie board, these boards include all sorts of cookies, like gingerbread, chocolate chip, royal icing cookies, linzer, shortbread, pretzels, granola bars and they also have a little section for hot drinks, you can add chocolate bombs, chocolate spoons, honey straws, marshmallows, etc. etc...

Gingerbread Cookies Ready To Go

This is a huge trend, everything that is ready to go is very appreciate now a days, you can sell a kit with gingerbread ornaments or an already assemble ginger bread house, with the icing and a lot, I mean a lot of candies.

You cannot go wrong with any of these options, and the Holiday is the perfect time for you to try these ideas out and gift them to someone special!