The dough scraps can be re-rolled several times. The cookies from re-rolled dough will be somewhat crisper than the initial batch of cookies, but I actually prefer them that way.

Place all your decorating items in small bowls on the table and let the kids design their own snowmen, Christmas trees, gingerbread people, and so on.

You can make the dough 1 or 2 days ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator until you're ready to make cookies. The recipe can be doubled.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 10 to 12 minutes
Yield: about 6 to 8 dozen cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
Dash salt
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine flour, spices, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, and corn syrup with an electric mixer. Stir in dry ingredients and combine.

Roll the dough out to 1/8-inch thickness on a lightly floured work surface. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Transfer the cookies to ungreased baking sheets and decorate with colored sugar, sprinkles, miniature chocolate chips, mini M&Ms, cinnamon hots, nonpareils, etc. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until cookies begin to turn golden. Cool cookies on racks. (If any sugar or decorations have fused to the cookie sheets, scrape them off with a metal spatula before placing the next batch of cookies on the sheet.)

Dough scraps from each batch of cookies can be pressed into a ball and rolled out to 1/8-inch thickness again. Let cookie sheets cool before you place a new batch of cookies on them.

Cookies can also be baked without decorations, then iced with powdered sugar icing or royal icing.