Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly spray or oil.

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt with a fork.

Cream butter and sugar with a mixer on medium-low speed, about 4, until yellow and creamy, about 2-3 minutes. Don’t over mix. Then add egg and mix for an additional 30 seconds.

Remove from mixer to stir, or use lowest setting, and mix in the flour until completely incorporated, a minute tops.

Drop cookies by a heaping tablespoon onto the lined baking trays about 2 inches apart, you’ll have room for 12 cookies per tray. If you will not be icing the cookies you can skip the next step.

If you will be decorating the cookies, then you will want to flatten the dough by pressing down with a glass. Fill a plate with cinnamon sugar, grease or wet the bottom of a flat-bottomed glass. Dip glass into the sugar plate and then lightly press down on the cookie dough. This step will give you a flatter cookie that is easier to decorate.

Pop in the oven for exactly 12 minutes, the cookies will just be beginning to brown and get crisp edges. Remove from oven and let set for about 5 minutes. Then pull the parchment paper off the baking trays and let the cookies cool on the parchment paper on your counter.

If you aren’t cooking all the trays at once then put the cookie trays in the refrigerator for 15 minutes or the freezer for 8 minutes or until ready to use. This will keep the cookies from spreading too much.

For the easy cookie icing mix 1 cup powdered sugar with 1-3 tablespoons of milk. Start with 1 tablespoon and thoroughly mix. Your first instinct will be to keep adding milk, don’t do that until you are sure you have scooped to the bottom of the bowl and stirred all the milk into the sugar. Keep adding a small amount of milk until you get to a thick consistency that will drizzle off a fork. If you go too far and the icing is too thin, then add more powdered sugar.

Use an off-set spatula or a plastic pie / cake server. Dip the tip into the icing and put a nice pile of icing on a cookie. Immediately start spreading the icing as you turn the cookie to cover most of the cookie surface.

If using sprinkles add them right away to the wet icing so that the sprinkles stick. If using colored frosting, M&M’s or other candy then let the icing set a bit. This way you won’t mess up the base icing and the candy will hold its position better.

Now eat to your hearts content, it’s Christmas time after all!