Cookie madness begins!

I have less than a month to prepare over 13 dozen Christmas cookies. Each year, my Uncle Marty gives an award to the "best" cookie (don't ask for the qualifications - no one but him knows) and Tom and I have won two out of the past three years.

The first year, we won with our Christmas mice:
Sadly, the next year, we only got a "First Runner-Up", because he went off of the cookies that were gone the fastest (and when you have a 19 year old boy helping you eat, they ALL go fast). We baked meringue mushrooms that year:Sadly, I do not have a photograph of last year's winning cookie, a chocolate dipped almond creation.

But the bar is set high for us. We need to make our fellow bakers quake in their boots!