12 Days of Christmas Cookies Day 1: Snowball Cookies (Pecan Shortbread)

Hey everyone! I can now speak as a free woman! School is officially done for the semester and I all I can think to do now is lay in bed surrounded by big blankets and freshly baked cookies.

Don't judge.

For real though, it's not officially Christmas in my house until every nook and cranny of our kitchen is filled with boxes of festive cookies. We started baking as far back as I can remember for our annual Christmas party we used to hold but since we moved away we stopped having the party, however, we still continued to bake enough cookies to feed 100 + people three times over. Can you blame us?

Now we just give them away to friends/family and of course we keep some for ourselves (and by some I mean over half). Since I have soooo many awesome recipes to share, I decided to do a 12 Days of Christmas Cookies series in which I will (try) to post a different cookie recipe everyday.

These cookies are probably one of my faves just because they are so light and crispy you don't really feel weighed down after eating them. The powdered sugar on top gives it that perfect amount of sweetness and the cookies itself resembled a lighter version of a shortbread.

Snowball Cookies

2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter (soft)
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups chopped pecans

Directions:

1.Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

2.Stir together flour, sugar and salt. With mixer on low add the butter, vanilla and nuts until just combined.

3.To make cookies easier to roll, you might want to put the dough in the fridge for about 15 minutes or so. Roll into 1 inch balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 20-25min.