2025 christmas cookie box
It’s time! The FMG 2025 Christmas Cookie Box is here!
It’s December 15 and while many have wrapped up their holiday gift buying and making by now, even more of ya’ll haven’t even started. I see you.
To be fair, this year I think Christmas really snuck up on everyone, probably because of how late Thanksgiving fell and how fast-paced life is nowadays across generations. Too busy living, too busy not living. Hopefully, however, slowing down with lots of sweet treats will give you a calmer state of mind, least for a few hours.
I love this year’s cookie box. I think it’s my favorite, both due to the content and due to how lovely it turned out aesthetically. All of my boxes so far have been small – if you’re making several, there’s no need to pile in 20,000 cookies into a big vessel and hoping you’ve baked enough to cover your whole nice list. In fact, that sounds wildly stressful, and the point of putting together a cookie box is to derive joy from the process.
As far as a theme goes, I don’t know if I really have one with my cookie boxes. I tend to brainstorm recipes I want to test and share well ahead of time and end up with whatever the universe feels is most successful and appropriate. AKA, which cookies don’t look like shit and boast the best flavor. I think my favorite of this year’s bunch are the Vanilla Bourbon Christmas Tree Cookies, and the Holiday Red Velvet Cookies are a close second.
Best Practices for Choosing Cookies
For individual gifts, 4-5 cookie varieties is a good rule of thumb. If you’re curating a box for a party, 6-8, and plenty of each, will ensure a proper variety from which guests can pick and choose.
I highly recommend a metal cookie box if you’re shipping. You can find some of my recommendations below. A very sturdy cardboard gift box works well too so long as it has no give in the material. As far as size goes, you’re going to pay a hefty postage price if the package is bulky, so I usually don’t like to send out ones larger than a shoe box.
The cookies and treats should be sturdy enough to hold up to shipping. If they’re on the softer side, like the sugar cookies, you can pad them extra well in bubble wrap, tissue paper, and/or plastic wrap and be sure to stack them flat instead of on their sides. Try to bake up a variety of flavor profiles, textures, and shapes! I love the cutouts and bark in this box since they add a different flare than your standard round cookie.
Not that these hoes are standard, by any means.
All that said, here are the cookies in this year’s box, and keep scrolling to find my tips and tricks for cookie box success!
The Cookies
Pumpkin Butter White Chocolate Oatmeal Bars
Vanilla Bourbon Christmas Tree Cookies
Additional Cookie Ideas
Movie Night Popcorn Chocolate Chip Cookies
Egg Yolk Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cranberry White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
Chocolate Dipped Bourbon Peanut Butter Cookies
Crinkly Maple Glazed Peanut Butter Cookies
Maple Bourbon Glazed White Chocolate Chip Cookies
How To Build Your Box
The box…This year I bought this adorable trio of tins – the holly berry print is what I used for the styling – and this same brand has several ca-yute collections from which to choose, with three sizes depending on how big a container you need. These, especially the white holly print, were my second option, or if you prefer round here’s the same pattern. Or, this set if you’re feeling posh.
The takeaway: Use something sturdy, with solid sides, nothing like a t-shirt box that’s floppy and will likely bend and possibly break in transit. A clean shoe or boot box (on the smaller side, for a pair of ankle boots) provides a nice roomy confinement for your treats.
For dividers, I cut up pieces of cardstock about 2 inches in height to match the height of my box. You can stack the dividers by cutting slits in the centers of each and sliding one on top of the other. If needed, use nontoxic glue to attach the dividers to the bottom of the tin or box. The glue will need to set for a couple of hours before you adorn with your fillings.
The filling…Cute tissue paper is a must for the box! I like this Christmas plaid collection but went with the gold/white paper. I double or triple fold my tissue paper to add some extra nesting to each slot.
The accessories…Candy canes and various chocolates, coated pretzels or pretzel rods, or nuts are some ideas for fillers and provide an extra little surprise to your recipient. I also like to tie up little bags of said embellishments, or the S’mores Bark listed above, with cute ribbon like this festive roll or some simple striped velvet ribbon. You can also throw in some mini ornaments or bottlebrush trees.
I’m pretty traditional and like best a red/gold/green scheme, but hey, if you’re a Barbie pink girly, you do you.
Packing & Shipping Your Box
The name of the game with the cookie box is securing properly. No matter how travel-ready your treats are, if they’re thrown together haphazardly, they will arrive broken and sad to their destination. We don’t want that. Or at least I don’t.
Securing the wares…Wrap each bundle of like cookies in a few layers of tissue paper to secure. If you’re sending off the frosted sugar cookies, wrapped each individually in plastic. Place the heaviest cookies on the bottom, and the most fragile on top. Top with a few layers of tissue or bubble wrap, slide a cute note in if you’re a sappy bastard, then place the lid on. Wrap the box in your choice wrapping paper and decorate with some ribbon, a bow, and maybe a big candy cane.
Boxing up the box…Buy some bubble wrap, packing peanuts, that stringy brown crap, or the weird air-filled plastic shit that looks like bubble wrap on steroids. Set a layer down in the base of your shipping box. Here, you can buy a cheap bath or kitchen towel and wrap your cookie box up all nice and snug, then place your cookie box inside. Surround with your choice padding, all sides and on top.
Secure your box with packing tape, label as needed, and write FRAGILE in all caps multiple times all over the box. This doesn’t guarantee that drivers and warehouse folks won’t be assholes and toss your box around, but it does help.
If you’re driving your own cookie box somewhere, you’ll probably be okay skipping the heavy duty football gear-esque protection. I still like to set the cookie box in another vessel and wrap it with cute paper – and a bow, of course – cos it makes me feel like Santa Clause or some shit. Ho Ho Ho-oh yeah.
Shipment recommendations: I know overnight and two-day shipping are a pain in the wallet, but the less time the cookie box is on the road or in the sky, the better. Less time, less handling, less chance the cookies will end up in shards. I typically use UPS or USPS for any sort of shipping.
A Few Final Notes
As it was for me, the making of a cookie box should be ENJOYABLE. I switched on some cozy jazz music, wore a comfy outfit, and set about assembling my rendition while bobbing my head to the tunes. Just remember, too, that you don’t have to bake these cookies all at once. Tackle a batch a day, or every other day, until you have what you need. This season flits by incredibly fast anyway, so why not slow down and embrace the process?
Before you do anything, ensure your recipients aren’t harboring any food allergies or dietary restrictions. No point in gifting a beautiful treat box when the person who gets it has major celiac, is vegan, or hates fun. Why you’re even friends with the lattermost is beyond me.
Made your own cookie box? Let me see! And if you used any of the recipes in this post, leave a rating and comment below with your thoughts, and don’t forget to come say hi on Instagram and show me what you made!
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