I've been looking through the various Christmas Cookie collections at the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal and other sites, including several on my iPhone, so far I've only found two recipes that interest me. Most of them strike me as too much work or flavor combinations (like rosemary and pine nuts) that we wouldn't like.

One is the Washington Post's Marbled Shortbread recipe, you take the dough, divide it roughly in half, divide one half into fourths and color them, then fold them all together into a log in a way that produces streaks of color in the cookies when sliced, the recipe also calls them kaleidoscope.

The more interesting recipe is the Wall Street Journal's Brutti ma Buoni cookies. It translates to 'ugly but good'. They're hazelnut meringue cookies. The interesting step is that once you make the meringue and add in the toasted chopped hazelnuts, you cook the meringue in a skillet until it turns beige, then you use a spoon to make the cookies and bake them. This results in a meringue cookie that is tan rather than white.

I am not providing links because I'm not sure they'd work. The Washington Post collection article could probably be gifted, which would work for two weeks.