Baking Up A Mess

Tonight we made Christmas cookies. For some reason (and I'm sure there's an easy fix for this) when I make sugar cookies from the tube-o-dough and I try to use cookie cutters, my shapes end up puffy and disfigured. They cut fine, but they poof out and, at best, they keep their shape but in bloated form, or, at worst, they seem to morph into a completely unrecognizeable shape. This time, no different. But when your customers are 8, 5, and 2 (x2), the bar is set pretty low. What mattered was that there were lots of messy, color-staining choices with which to decorate. For 12 cookies, they used the entire jar of 5-color sugar, 6 gel writer icing tubes and a jar of spreadable frosting. Classic--and tasty!