HERSHEY´S Horneando Juntas/Baking Together Blog Tour- What are you baking?

Every year, since I was a child, I remember my mom getting together with some of her friends and family members for a cookie party. It was one of the few times during the holidays that my mom could escape for an evening out. Plus, when she returned, she returned with a platter of miscellaneous cookies.

Every year, I invite my girlfriends over for a cookie party at my house, but it never seems to go as well as it did for my mom. I think it's because all of our kids are younger, and time is very hard to find, most of my girlfriends come with supermarket cookies. This year, I had more homemade cookies than in the years past, but I like to giggle with my girlfriends, and share recipes, so we still do it.

This year there was a special guest. HERSHEY'S and MyBlogSpark sent me a prize pack filled with Kisses, cocoa powder, a mixing bowl, apron and gift card to buy extra ingredients. I also hosted a giveaway for the ladies that attended, which made for a much better turnout, some ladies even brought a guest! Needless to say, we had a boatload of cookies.

There are a ton of cookies that are my favorites. Rainbow cookies (aka 7 layer cookies) are an all time favorite of mine. If I can find the almond paste, I'm determined to make them with the kids over their school break. Magic Cookie Bars are another favorite. Made with chocolate morsels, coconut and evaporated milk- what's better than that?! I also add Heath chunks in it for an extra special surprise.

We had a ton of cookies ranging from thumbprints, to cow pie (or cow patty) cookies, and so many more. I shared some of my favorite recipes with my friends and gained some more for my recipe book.

I learned that there are a ton of delicious recipes at the Hershey's Kitchen (La Cocina de Hershey's) that I can't wait to try! If you can read Spanish, check out the second link. I had more fun cruising through that site than the other one, because it had a ton of cookies my grandmother used to make. I have no idea what the english names were, so it was fun to trip down that memory lane.

The fun part of my life, is that many of my friends know about my Hispanic heritage, but never really think of me as Spanish and Puerto Rican, unless I'm telling them what they're eating in Spanish. It seems to take them a second, but they usually giggle and ask for me to tell them what it is in English. It reminds me of when I was younger. It used to drive me crazy how fast the adults could ramble in Spanish, and my cousins and I would try so hard to keep up. I got really good after awhile, but it's sad that I rarely speak in Spanish since my grandmother died, and I moved. My kids love listening to me speak Spanish. I miss the huge family get-togethers- which is why, my husband thinks, I love hosting huge get-togethers, and cookie parties, and the like.

Do you host or go to any holiday cookie parties?  What is your favorite part about the holidays? If you make holiday cookies, what's your favorite cookie?? (If you can include a link in your comment, that would be great.)

Special thanks to Hershey's and MyBlogSpark for sending me all of the goodies needed for me to kick off this year's cookie party!

Disclosure: The Hershey´s product, information, recipes, and prize pack have been provided by The Hershey Company through MyBlogSpark.