Plus, I just don't eat that many cookies,

But that's the beauty of it - FIVE CUPS of flour, TWELVE COOKIES!

One of the traditions my wife has established is that for Christmas, everybody gets food. Which means we make a shit-ton of recipes. Also, the fambly comes over and decorates her dad's traditional cookie recipe on Christmas Eve. This was primarily instituted so that her mom would be forced to stop last-minute shopping at least 12 hours before the deadline but it also works as a fun get-together thing. Kinda psyched to see my daughter mess around next year. Anyway. We'll make a triple recipe of the cookies and end up with something like eight dozen of the things out of most of a 5lb bag of flour. I'll buy 2 lbs of walnuts but we get enough spiced nuts out of that to put together a dozen packages or so (we also crank through four recipes of fudge, two or more recipes of toffee, usually a double-or triple recipe of candied orange/lemon peel and a double recipe of shortbread).

One nice thing about this recipe is it'll keep your food coloring fresh. We generally have to buy new paste every couple years 'cuz you just can't go through the stuff fast enough to keep it from turning to tar. This recipe? Watch that chick with the gel coloring. My wife thought it was frosting at first the way she was laying into it.