This is what happens to gingerbread cookies in a household full of people who like order. They get sorted by shape, and stacked. Small hearts, large hearts, left-facing pigs, right-facing pigs, and numerous piles of small stars and circles made from the scraps of dough between the larger cookies.

This looked satisfying but later turned out to be not a very good idea. At least not when the cookies are stacked when they are still warm. Because this way the steam can’t evaporate and the cookies end up soft rather than crisp. Unfortunately we only discovered this when we had finished decorating. I put the undecorated ones back in the oven to dry them out, but you can’t heat the decorated ones because the icing goes all runny. So we will be eating soft gingerbread cookies this year.

Ingrid is a skilled decorator and makes the most fancy ones, like the Christmas trees here. Adrian likes lots of icing on his, and preferably in colour, not in white.

I like understated decorations, mostly in white.

One Christmas we got a truck-shaped cookie cutter from Mathem (the online grocery store). I guess we are valued customers or something. It’s one of Adrian’s favourites, and Ingrid made an actual Mathem truck cookie for him.

This is Adrian’s photo of the cookies he liked best: a Santa couple, a very Grinchy Grinch, and a donut with extra everything.