Several years ago, I dimly recall, I decided to make gift boxes of cookies for all my friends for Christmas. I pulled out an assortment of recipes, including rugelach and chocolate truffles, and proceeded to raise hell in my kitchen for two or three days. At the end, I was exhausted. I threw a party, packed the cookies in Chinese takeout boxes jazzed up with random slashes of gold paint, and begged my friends to take them out of my sight. Never again, I vowed.

How quickly we forget. With our nation officially in a recession, it seems everyone is trumpeting the virtues of homemade Christmas gifts. And not much is cheaper than eggs, flour and sugar. Once again, I hit the kitchen for a cookie extravaganza. I woke up early to knock off batches for a couple of friends who were leaving town this morning, and am now sitting surrounded by plates of cookies and the warm scents of cooked sugar and spices.

There were some heartbreaks along the way:

but all’s well that ends well.

Here’s the final score:

Whole wheat sables w/ chocolate bits: I’ve made these shortbread-like refrigerator cookies a couple times before and I love them, especially with cocoa nibs, which have the flavor of chocolate but not its sweetness or fattiness. Of course, the sense of virtuous restraint vanishes when you remember that the cookies are practically all butter and sugar. Whatever. Recipe from the L.A. Times, but their archive sucks and I enjoyed the beautifully written recipe review in the Wednesday Chef.

Maida Heatter’s gin-soaked raisin chocolate cookies: This is from Gourmet’s best cookies roundup, and for once I actually remember this recipe from having made it before. These are amazing, not just in flavor but also in concept. There’s hardly any flour — just two tablespoons. The bulk of the dough is confectioners’ sugar. They bake to a dry, crackly crust, but remain moist and gooey inside, thanks to the gin-soaked raisins. I can’t say that I taste the gin (I used Hendricks), but they seem decadent anyway. I imagine you can sub the alcohol of your choice, as long as it goes well with chocolate and raisins.

Gingerbread cookies: My complaint with most gingerbread cookies is that they just don’t taste like ginger, or anything but a generic blend of holiday spices. Not these. With ground and fresh ginger, and cardamom as well as allspice, cinnamon and cloves, they have a truly spicy kick. And you know how to take them over the top? By sandwiching them with rum buttercream.

Mocha toffee bars: These are very good, with strong coffee flavor. Unfortunately they were competing with my vivid taste memory of the chocolate-nut-covered shortbread bars one of the editors used to bring into my office around the holidays every year. Happily, I just heard back from one of my ex-coworkers, who said she’s going to ask for the recipe for me. Hooray!

Chocolate caramels with fleur de sel: They looked so pretty in the photograph, but … either my candy thermometer is broken or I don’t know how to use it. While I was stirring desperately and trying to get the temperature up to 255 degrees, an armorlike layer of burnt candy was forming on the bottom of the pan. It’s still there, after a couple rounds of boiling water. The candies are actually not bad — on par with See’s, one of my friends assured me — so I’m going to try to pass off the smoky note as deliberate. Burnt-sugar chocolate caramels, anyone?

Rosemary pine nut cookies: I really love the simple yet creative desserts I’ve had at Pizzeria Mozza in L.A.; well, basically, this one and the salted caramel butterscotch budino. I had these cookies on my first visit to the pizzeria, shortly after it opened. I don’t think I even ordered them; they wouldn’t have sounded like my kind of thing. One or two just came with my check, and the piney aroma of rosemary infusing these cookies was a revelation for me. They’re not too difficult to make at home, although I may have overcooked my nougat — thermometer problems again! — which definitely was not pliable at room temperature. Enter my good friend the microwave. But all’s well that ends well, and this recipe certainly did.

Raisin-filled sugar and spice cookies: These are my new favorite cookie: tender, buttery, and scented with my favorite spice, cardamom. I had to restrain myself from doubling the amount, and I’m glad I did — the butter carries the spice flavor very well, and I was using a fresh, pungent jar of spice from Penzeys. I only wish I’d paid more attention to the Wednesday Chef review in which Luisa pointed out that it is impossible to roll out the ultra-soft dough as specified in the recipe, or rather to transfer one sheet on top of the other with the fillings, as in making ravioli. Luisa opts to shape and fill them by hand; I think I like cutting out circles, then folding them in half like dumplings.

The smell of those raisin spice cookies reminds me of the one kind of Christmas cookie that I really did make with my mom when I was little: a simple butter cookie, the rounds stamped out from thinly rolled dough. We’d paint them, using tiny art-supply brushes, with a blend of egg yolk and food coloring. I’ve never bothered to make them on my own, scorning them as too simple, but that buttery scent brings back powerful memories of our old house, decorating the tree with my parents (when I was young enough to get into a fever of excitement over the pile of presents beneath it), and pretty much all the feelings that the holiday is supposed to be about.

Christmas is still a couple days away; I guess I have time to make another batch.