It’s week 5 of our Christmas Sensory Series for the 5 Senses.  After Santa Binoculars, Jingle Bell Noisemakers, Holiday Wall Art, and Lickable Wallpaper, it’s now time for Crazy Christmas Cookies.  This week we are focusing on the sense of smell.  I know, I know, homemade Christmas cookies should be for the week of taste, not smell, but when I think of smell, I think of cookies! They just smell so amazing baking in the oven that I decided, hey, I’m in charge here and I’m making cookies.  So here you go…Crazy Christmas Cookies you can make with your kids.  Here’s what we did.

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First, you’ll need a chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Whatever your favorite chocolate chip recipe is will work great for this.  I used the one right on the back of the Nestle Tollhouse morsels bag.

Next, you’ll need all the crazy.  We used peppermint pretzels, multi-flavored candy canes, more chocolate chips, red and green crystal sprinkles and red and green m&m’s.  I set everything up on a little placemat and then put out two trays for my girls to create their crazy cookies on.

They scooped out the dough with a spoon and then had the choice of whatever additions they wanted to make to their cookies.  Obviously, they chose EVERYTHING.

The candy canes were the biggest attraction.  I showed them how to put the candy canes in a ziploc and then crush them into bits and pieces with a hammer.  They loved this part.  I think what I loved the most was seeing these two little girls in their flowery princess dresses banging the candy canes as hard they could with a hammer.  Go girls.  Go.

The spinkles were another big hit.  My girls never tire of sprinkles.  Shake shake shake.

The girls made a ton of cookies but…how shall I put this?  They weren’t quite in operational order.  So, I managed to substitute a few in there that were a little more ready for the camera.  What I didn’t realize ahead of time was that the candy canes would melt into pretty candy all over the cookies.  That part was really fun to see.  And yes, we all enjoyed the delicious smell of the cookies as they baked in the oven.

*The verdict on the cookies…well, they were good, really good, except from some select bites where the flavored candy canes were kind of odd in there.  We might just stick with peppermint candy canes next time.  The colored ones are all kinds of flavors that are a little strange.  But hey, these aren’t called Crazy Christmas cookies for nothin’.

Please take a minute to check out these other great posts around smell! There are awesome ideas here.

How about a Winter Scent Lab from BabbleDabbleDo.  Ana always has the coolest ideas.

This Small Gingerbread World is so cool from Childhood 101.  I’m in love with the milk carton town Christie made!

How about a Candy Cane Sensory Tub that smells just like Christmas from Cathy at Nurture Store?

Kristina at Toddler Approved has the best ideas for the younger set

Oh, and I LOVE this Christmas Imaginary Play set up from Kate at Picklebums

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series!!!  Happy Holidays Everyone!