My sister, Pam, loves to cook and bake. I'm notorious for avoiding the kitchen at all costs.

So, last year, when I edited a story about cookie exchanges for our annual Holiday Gift Guide, I suggested to my sister that we invite some friends over to her spacious and newly remodeled kitchen for a Christmas cookie-baking party. I had ulterior motives -- namely, reaping the rewards of my friends' culinary skills without actually doing any baking myself. I opened flour bags, located ingredients, measured spices and washed dishes, and I walked away with a container full of yummy holiday treats.

Did I mention we had a blast?

Why not take advantage of your friends and family, um, I mean... host your own cookie-baking party for your friends and family this year?

Here are a few tips:

• Pick a host. Choose someone with a big kitchen -- preferably someone who likes to cook since they'll have extra ingredients and all the baking gadgets you may need.

• Make it exclusive. I'd suggest you keep it to fewer than six people so that you have enough room to move and enough oven space to bake all the goodies.

• Do it soon. If you can throw it together by next weekend, that would be ideal. It would be early enough that you'd have cookies to serve holiday visitors, but not too early that the cookies will go bad before the big day.

• Set the mood. Light up the Christmas tree and play holiday music in the background.

• Give them their orders. Ask everyone to bring their favorite recipe along with any uncommon ingredients that the recipe takes, for example, coconut extract or peppermint candies. Then, simply assign everyone a common ingredient -- a bag of flour, a bag of sugar, a pound of butter -- to contribute to the pot.

• Don't get short-sheeted. Ask everyone to bring a cookie sheet or two. This way you can have the cookies lined up and ready to go in the oven, one after the other.

• Bring take-home containers. Everyone should bring their own containers to take their cookies home. Something with an airtight lid is best.

• Rotate, rotate, rotate. Be sure to rotate baking sheets from the top to bottom shelves mid-cycle when baking cookies to ensure even browning. Even the best ovens can build up hot spots in certain areas.

• Minimize tasting. Avoid eating half the cookies before you get them home by serving a simple soup-and-sandwich meal, or have everyone bring a dish and have a potluck lunch.

• Share the recipe. Ask your guests to bring copies of their recipe. Or, provide recipe cards so those who want another guests recipe can copy it themselves. Hersheys.com offered this tip: Ask your guests to send their cookie recipes to you ahead of time, print them out on pretty sheets of paper and assemble homemade cookie recipe books -- what a wonderful party favor. (Hey, now this is something I can do for our party!)

• Let them chill. Cool cookies completely before storing or they will get soft and sticky.

• Grab and go. When all the cookies are cooled, just lay them out on the table or counter and have everyone walk around the table with their container and take an equal amount of each.

• Throw in some bread. Soft cookies will stay fresher, longer if they are stored with a slice of bread (change the bread every day or so).

• Don't forget your camera. This is the stuff holiday scrapbook pages are made of. Don't forget to include the recipes.