Christmas Cookie Exchange a sweet success: Wedding Cookie Table Community awaits final confirmation on record
The final results are still being tallied, but in the end, The Wedding Cookie Table Community’s attempt to set a record for the World’s Largest Christmas Cookie Exchange was a sweet success.
Laura Magone, who started the Wedding Cookie Table Community – which now includes more than 391,000 Facebook members – and thought it would be fun to organize an event highlighting the tradition of Christmas baking, said the cookie exchange, held Sunday at the Washington County Fairgrounds, “turned out to be far more than setting a record.”
Magone estimates that the 10-member teams who participated – 33 teams set up shop inside Kringle Kitchen at the Washington County Fairgrounds while another 38 teams took part remotely across the United States and in New Zealand – baked about 80,000 cookies.
In all, an estimated 670 professional and amateur bakers participated.
“When you look at a cookie, you’re looking at something that represents our heritage, our culture, our family histories, and it represents our connections to others,” said Magone, of Monongahela. “Every person has a story, every team has a story, and there is a history behind many of the cookies that the bakers made.”
One of the teams that joined in the festivities remotely was Altadena Cookie Exchange, a California group led by Kelsey Cushing, whose family lost their home in the Eaton Fire in Los Angeles County in January that destroyed more than 9,000 buildings and left 19 people dead.
Cushing lost everything, including Christmas ornaments, family heirlooms, homemade vanilla extracts, and bakeware used during holidays.
For her and other team members – who either lost homes or were impacted by the fire – being a part of the cookie exchange was healing.
“Going through an experience like that, you cherish traditions, you mourn the loss of things. But we’re really resilient and strong, and we wanted to be a part of something joyful,” said Cushing. “We had such a fun time. Our community is going to make new traditions as we start over, and I bet we will do it again next year, even if it’s on our own.”
Cushing said team members “matched my level of cookie crazy” baking cookies.
She made a gingerbread cookie from a recipe her grandmother used to make.
“As a child, I remember every Christmas visiting her with my family, and she would give us the gingerbread cookies in a bag with a $5 bill inside. When I was a child, it was magical,” said Cushing. “She never gave us the recipe, but multiple family members would watch her while she was making them and write it down, and I think we got it as close as we could. Every Christmas, I make those gingerbreads with my kids.”
Meanwhile, more than 8,000 miles away from the fairgrounds, the New Zealand Liveaboards, a team from New Zealand led by Lena Fluharty, a New York native who has been living aboard a 45-foot sailboat with her husband for three years, held their cookie exchange at 5:30 a.m. Monday.
“I love to bake so I was very excited for a cookie exchange,” said Fluharty, a member of the cookie table community Facebook page who has lived on the West Coast for several years and has only been able to take part in two exchanges in the past two decades. “It’s not so common on the West Coast.”
Fluharty ran into plenty of obstacles planning the New Zealand cookie exchange with other “liveaboards” who are docked at their marina, including a lack of baking equipment and ovens.
“I thought this would be easy peasy, but another problem is cookies aren’t a thing here. They have biscuits, but if you go into a bakery, they have maybe one or two kinds of cookies,” said Fluharty. “And people had no idea what a cookie exchange was. I’d explain that you come with one kind of cookie and leave with 10 types of cookies and they said that sounds fun, but then I told them it’s at 5 in the morning and they said, ‘no, thanks.'”
In the end, Fluharty did put together a team for a pre-dawn exchange. Fluharty baked orange drop cookies, while others brought along peanut butter cookies, lemon drops, and chocolate chip cookies.
“I don’t think they even know what a lady lock or a pizzelle is,” said Fluharty. “One of the women had a hard time finding chocolate chips for the chocolate chip cookies, and another woman ran out of butter for the peanut butter cookies so she didn’t make as many. There is no bus from where some of the boats are docked to the marina, so one woman walked 25 minutes to the marina to be a part of it. We had a lot of fun.”
That sense of camaraderie and holiday joy is what Magone was hoping for when she bounced the cookie exchange idea off of some baking buddies.
“So many people said they felt uplifted by the cookie exchange, and that’s what we wanted. The holidays can be hard for people. There’s a lot of sadness in the world, but this was a joyful event. You couldn’t be sad at that event,” said Magone.
Magone, who coordinated the Wedding Cookie Table Community’s record-setting event, the World’s Largest Wedding Cookie Table, in 2019, where bakers made 85,425 cookies, said the Christmas cookie exchange raised awareness about the region’s cookie table tradition and also provided an opportunity to do something good for the community.
The funds raised from the $5 entrance fee will be donated to the Monongahela Area Historical Society for restoration of the historic Longwell House, which sits on the city’s main street. Participants also brought food donations and monetary donations that will be given to food pantries served by the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
In addition, visitors had a chance to vote for the best table, with The 12 Days of Blingmas earning the most votes. The Weirton, W.Va., team’s table theme was the Christmas carol, “The 12 Days of Christmas,” and featured a Christmas tree adorned with feathers, golden pears, birds, and other decorations.
The remote team winner was the Sugar Plum Sweets from Sylvania, Ohio.
Every member of the top teams won a set of bakeware from USA Pan.
Magone said she was “stunned” by the efforts the teams put into their cookies and table decorations.
“Every table, to me, was just magnificent. Those cookie tables represent who we are in this area,” said Magone. “There was this whole new concept of displaying Christmas cookie tables and it gives people a chance to walk around and see art and culture in motion, and I think that is why we have to keep doing this.”
But, Magone admitted, she has not yet decided to host the event again next year – even though it’s a question she’s already received.
“It makes me proud that we did this in Washington County,” said Magone. “I’m proud to promote this area, and I’m glad so many people got to come and visit our county.”