There’s something special about a recipe card passed between family members and neighbors, stained with butter and flour smudges. This year, we asked Lancaster Review readers to share the Christmas cookies that make their holidays, not just the recipes, but the handwritten cards, the sticky notes, the margins filled with “Grandma’s tip: chill the dough overnight.” What came back was a beautiful archive of tradition.

Here are a few of the cookies that’ll be coming out of Lancaster County ovens this season.