One Fierce Holiday Cookie.

Last weekend, I was invited to what some people might call a “cookie swap”. The guests were asked to bring three dozen home-baked cookies to share with the other guests in attendance. I didn’t go because I had other plans, but I was intrigued and baffled by the idea of it.

Cookie swap? I couldn’t help but think that it might be some sort of food blogger’s version of wife swapping, but instead of dropping one’s keys into a large fishbowl and leaving the party with someone else’s wife, one swaps recipes online, drops their creation on a side table, and winds up leaving with someone else’s cookies.

Tempting, perhaps, but I don’t need to get any fatter this winter– the Holidays are hectic enough. And I have neither the time nor the energy to bake off large quantities of cookies during the month of December. Hell, I barely have the time or energy to write blog posts.

I did, however, feel as though I were missing something by opting out of Holiday cookie parties and Twitter #cookieweek and all the other cookie-related hullabaloo that happens around this time of year, so I decided I’d do something about it.

I decided to bake one gingerbread cookie*. Just one. Or four, if you’re counting accessories. It’s all I had time for.

I’ve made gingerbread men, I’ve made gingerbread women. They’re delicious, but they don’t make much of a statement. I thought about making transgendered gingerbread persons, but they aren’t exactly exciting — in purely gingerbread terms, mind you– they look just like any other gingerbread men and women, except maybe with slightly larger hands and feet than ordinary. Or smaller, depending.

So I decided to make a gingerbread drag queen.

It makes perfect sense if you stop to think about it long enough. The Holidays are loud, fun, overly-decorated, and in-your-face. It’s a time of year that screams out for a cookie to match it. And gingerbread drag queens certainly fit the bill.

One of the best things about making gingerbread drag queens is that you only need to make one. You’ll spend so much time thinking about her (what she’ll wear, what her drag name should be, etc.) that you simply won’t have time to do anything else. Besides, there are so many accessories to bake along side of her. I limited myself to three: a wig, a cocktail, and a microphone**.

If you have the right amount of time on your hands, you could make different wigs to suit various occasions: A menorah tiara-ed french twist  for Hanukkah, a red sequined Santa hat over white-frosted bangs for Christmas, a beehive filled with apple pie filling and corn nuts for Kwanzaa. I haven’t even begun to think about what sort of wig one would wear for Boxing Day. A wig strewn with coins and leftover food? I’m not entirely sure, however, how one might go about creating that effect with royal icing, so let’s just pretend I didn’t mention it.

Perhaps the best thing about making a gingerbread drag queen is that you must name it. I’ve decided to name mine Ginger Breadman in honor of the very last day of Hanukkah. I would have posted her earlier in the holiday, but you know how drag queens are– they take forever to get ready, but once they do…

They are fierce.

And they don’t like to share the stage with anybody.

Which is what you should tell people when you show up to your next cookie swap with only one, gorgeous cookie.

*No recipe this week, because the recipe I used is not my own. It is Elise Bauer’s of Simply Recipes. I am rather fond of both her and her gingerbread recipe. I did, however, leave out the cracked black pepper, but only because I cared too much about the complexion of my drag queen.

** And special thanks to the eight year-old KVC who unwittingly donated the silver glitter sprinkles to give Ginger the right shade of eyeshadow and a glimmering microphone.