Oatmeal Spice Raisin Cookies Recipe, & a Frugal Christmas Gift

I love my coworkers, and wanted to have a little Christmas gift for everyone. With about 25 people to give to, that makes it a difficult task to do something affordable. I decided pretty quickly to make cookies, but I wanted to package them in a way that made them a little special.

I decided to make one of my favorite oatmeal raisin cookie recipes – it just seemed like it would be a good fit for Christmas (I’ll list the recipe below if you’d like to try them too). I made enough cookies for everyone to have four, and then stacked the cookies in cellophane bags tied with grosgrain ribbon (I’m kind of addicted to using this ribbon, by the way – especially for gifts). My favorite part of the gift, though, was making a special tag to go on the cookies. Here’s what I came up with:

And here’s what the final product looked like:

On the back of the cards I printed a watermarked pattern of a Christmas tree, so that it wasn’t just a plain white back. I thought this was a fun way to present something simple as a gift – and it was really affordable!

Oh, I almost forgot! Here’s the recipe, in case you don’t want to squint to read it on the card above. :)

Oatmeal Spice Raisin Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup butter flavored shortening
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1  1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup raisins

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, butter flavored shortening, brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth and well blended.
3. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt, and stir into the sugar mixture.
4. Stir in the oats and raisins. Drop by about 1/2 tablespoon of dough onto parchment paper on cookie sheets.
5. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until light and golden. After a few minutes out of the oven the cookies will flatten. Enjoy!