Christmas cream cheese strawberry cookies and 8 more must-try cookies to add to your baking list

Every year, as soon as the weather turns crisp and cool, my sons start asking me to bake cookies. There is nothing like the smell of fresh-baked cookies to get everyone excited about the holidays!

If cookie-baking is one of your holiday traditions, too, you probably already have a list of tried-and-true cookie recipes. But if you’re looking for some variation from your usual favorites — maybe a special holiday cookie to give as a gift or something to bring to a cookie exchange —  you’ll love these cream cheese strawberry cookies from Oh My Goodness Chocolate Desserts.

Don’t they look scrumptious? Fresh strawberries, cream cheese and white chocolate melted and mixed into the cookie dough make this a one-of-a-kind Christmas cookie everyone will be talking about.

For more fun and festive treats, take a look at the bevy of holiday cookie recipes we’ve rounded up below. There’s something here for every cookie-lover to enjoy.

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

The trick to making these beautiful chocolate peppermint cookies from Preppy Kitchen is using an ice cream scoop to shape them. Chocolate cookies get a double-dose of peppermint with bits of crushed candy cane in the cookie and a festive white chocolate drizzle spiked with peppermint extract. You’ll want to leave a plate of these for Santa!

Eggnog Cookies

If you love eggnog, we have a cookie for you! These sweet little iced eggnog cookies from My Organized Chaos combine all your favorite spices of the season into one lovely cookie. There’s eggnog in the cookie dough as well as the icing,

Melting Snowmen Chocolate Mint Cookies

Invite the kids into the kitchen to help you make festive and fanciful “melting snowmen” cookies from Kitchen Meets Girl. The trick to making these adorable treats is using boxed devil’s food cake mix for the cookie dough base and adding a few drops of mint extract. They’re almost too cute to eat … almost!

Christmas Tree Meringue Cookies

These darling little melt-in-your-mouth meringue cookies from Cooking LSL require just a few ingredients to make a big impression! They take a long time to bake — up to two hours — but they are well worth the wait.

Chocolate Cherry Meltaway Thumbprint Cookies

There is a lot going on in these cookies from The Kitchen McCabe, but the end result is a blend of flavors that will blow you away. Chocolate shortbread is topped with cherry pie filling and drizzled with white chocolate for a cookie that tastes as good as it looks.

Holiday Pinwheel Cookies

This recipe from That Skinny Chick Can Bake will remind you of Santa’s elves! The butter cookies are all dressed up for the holidays in red and white spirals edged in colorful sprinkles. Their dreamy taste is rivaled only by their show-stopping good looks.

Holiday Fruitcake Cookies

Holiday fruitcake cookies are what you get when you take the very best of two holiday favorites and combine them into one beautiful dessert! In this recipe from A Spicy Perspective, the cookies are glazed and decorated with chopped fruit, nuts and seeds for a bright, festive cookie that looks like a miniature Christmas wreath!

Gingersnap Sandwich Cookies With White Chocolate Filling

The humble gingersnap gets a serious upgrade in these sandwich cookies from Two Peas and Their Pod. In this fabulous take on a classic, white chocolate buttercream is layered between soft, spicy gingersnaps. The delightful flavor combination is the stuff dreams are made of!