Chances are, you’ve been invited to between three and nine cookie swaps so far this season. Why did we normalize making a bunch of work mandatory to attend a holiday party? Anyway, if you are already sick of baking—sorry, Santa!—the best Christmas cookies are on shelves at your grocery store, so you can spend the season zoning out in front of the TV instead of nervously peeking into a 350-degree oven every few minutes.
For this taste test, I rounded up an assortment of the best store bought Christmas cookies—Christmas Oreos, Christmas sugar cookies, Pepperidge Farm Christmas cookies—tasted them head to head, and judged them on flavor and overall festiveness. In general, the best Christmas cookies feel special because you can’t get them all year. You’re going to want to stock up on these before the season is over.
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- Trader Joe’s Mini Gingerbread People
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Trader Joe’s Mini Gingerbread People aren’t the spiciest ginger cookies in the world (if you really want some burn, we have a full ranking of the best ginger cookies), but they’re cute and festive and they do contain bits of sweet, chewy ginger, which is a nice touch for little gingerbread people. What makes these some of the best Christmas cookies versus other gingerbread men is that they’re dunked in white fudge rather than a typical royal icing. They’re crunchy, snappy cookies, but the white fudge makes them less dry than regular icing. Oh, and they’re really cute!
Credit: Merc
- White Fudge Covered Oreos
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When it comes to Christmas Oreos, there have been some bangers—why oh WHY won’t they bring back Peppermint Bark Oreos??—but this year options are limited. Your choices are “Festive” Oreos, which are simply regular Oreo cookies with holiday embossments and red-and-green creme filling, or these seasonal White Fudge Covered Oreos, which are the way to go in my opinion. They are very sweet, but the fudge has some dimension and tastes really good with the cookie—it’s like an even creamier cookies-and-cream cookie experience. If you’re hell bent on buying Oreo Christmas cookies, buy these.
Credit: Merc / Target
- Favorite Day Holiday Sprinkles Sandwich Cookies
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Okay, don’t kill me, but I like these Target dupes better than the aforementioned Christmas Oreos. The chocolate fudge coating is so fudgy and good—when you open the box, the cookies smell like hot chocolate and they taste like hot chocolate, too. The sprinkles on top are a nice touch—they add a little extra texture and they’re festive as hell. These cookies are gonna look so cute when you bring them to the cookie swap and lie about making them yourself.
Credit: Merc / Target
- Pepperidge Farm Thin & Crispy Peppermint Cocoa
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If you like Thin Mints, these are the best Christmas cookies for you. They have the same baked-in cocoa flavor, and a nice kick of mouth-cooling peppermint oil. I actually prefer these Pepperidge Farm Christmas cookies (which are limited edition!) because instead of being mostly dry and crumbly, they’re nice and buttery. They kind of remind me of the brownie brittle you get on a plane sometimes, and that makes them feel more special than regular chocolate cookies.
Credit: Merc / Target
- Pepperidge Farm Amaretto Hot Cocoa Milano
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These seasonal Milanos aren’t the best amaretti cookies you’ll ever have, but they’re still good—and a fun change from your usual Milanos. It takes a minute for that cherry-ish amaretto flavor to hit you, but when it does, it’s delicate and pleasant and a lovely complement to the usual dark chocolate filling. Should we be putting amaretto in our hot chocolate? To be honest, that had never occurred to me. Thanks for the inspo, PF.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Sprouts Classic Holiday Sugar Cookies
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I thought these crunchy little sugar cookies might be good simply by virtue of being nostalgic. They look like cookies you’d get with a little carton of milk at snack time in preschool. But I was stunned to discover they’re some of the best Christmas cookies we’d try in our taste test. They’re crispy-crunchy, but they aren’t dry. They’re very buttery tasting, with little pops of salt. And I love the colored sugar on top. So they ARE nostalgic, but they actually taste good, too. What a nice little addition to the cookie spread. If you’re serving them at grown-up snacktime, they’re going to be great dunked in a cup of coffee.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Trader Joe’s Sugar Glazed Lebkuchen Cookies
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Described as soft gingerbread with nuts and spices, these German Christmas cookies are like pfeffernusse but better. They have a lovely ginger flavor, a delicate sugar glaze, and a fantastic texture—they’re soft and supple, and not dry like the Aldi pfeffernusse we tried. The nuts are plentiful, but also well cooked—they add texture but not crunch necessarily. They’re perfect. This is a controversial pick for the best Christmas cookies, but I need you to trust me on this one. Go to TJ’s and buy these!
Credit: Merc
Christmas Cookies!
Christmas Cookies!
Christmas Cookies!
Christmas Cookies!
Christmas Cookies!
Christmas Cookies!
Christmas Cookies!
Other products we tried: Sprouts Peppermint Rolled Wafers, Benton’s Pfeffernusse, L’oven Fresh Marzipan Stollen Bites, Favorite Day Mini Candy Cane Crunch Sandwich Cookies, Chips Ahoy Chewy Hot Cocoa
Benton’s Spekulatius Cookies at Aldi’s are actually the best. Buttery, spicy, crispy and crunchy, and so light you could down the whole bag without noticing
Everything is 7.5?