The ideal dining table centerpiece is handmade, edible, and inexpensive, like this gingerbread tree.  For this tree, I purchased a set of 10 star cookie cutters from Sur La Table, but I could have gotten by with half as many because sometimes the different cookie-cutter-sizes were barely noticeable.  The tree in my picture uses 36 cookies, and of the 10 cookie-cutter-sizes, from largest to smallest, I used: 5 cookies from size one, 5 from size two, 5 from size three, 5 from size four, 4 from size five, 4 from size six, 3 from size seven, 2 from size eight, 2 from size nine, and 1 from size ten.

Instead of gluing the cookies together with icing, I used a drinking straw to cut a whole in the center of each cookie before baking and piled them onto a dowel-topped base.  This enabled me to arrange and rearrange the cookies whenever I changed my mind about how many of each cookie-size to use (I finally decided to mostly use large cookies because the resultant tree looks more like a fir).  This also makes the cookies removable and edible (warning: they harden if left out too long).  For the cookie stand, I purchased the base at a craft store and drilled a hole in its center.  I glued a ¼" dowel into the hole and cut it to the desired length (12" in my case).

I wish I was able to decorate cookies with creative little details.  But I'm no artist, so I've decided that simplicity will suffice.  (My parents didn't pass along their artistic genes to me; when we lost an enormous oak tree from the front yard of my childhood home, they made these amazing turtle stools for each of us.)  Read more.

I love gingerbread houses and so I've made many of them over the years, but they have their shortcomings.  In order for the house not to collapse, its structural components need to be stiff—too stiff to enjoy eating.  And because of the excessive candy and frosting, the most well-decorated houses always end up being the most sickly sweet. 

But thankfully, my mini gingerbread houses are small enough to support themselves with a soft and edible gingerbread.  They don't need candy decorations either.  I make two different house sizes: small ones (2 inches long), and mini ones (1½ inches long, and small enough to balance on a cup of coffee or a glass of milk!).  Read more.