How Not To Decorate Holiday Cookies

Step One: For ease, why not use a ready made icing in a tube?

Step Two: After discovering the icing doesn't flow easily out of the tube, scrape off remnants with a plastic ruler.

Step Three: Cut open the tube, squeeze the icing out and mix with icing (confectioner's) sugar and boiled water to make a whole new batch you can pipe yourself.

Step Four: Neatly load your piping bag, making sure all the icing stays on the inside.

Step Five: Scrape contents out of the icing bag when you discover it pours out of everywhere apart from the little nozzle it is supposed to come out of. Creatively decide to dry it out with yet more sugar to form a stiff dough.

Step Six: Form neat evenly sized worms of sugar dough.

Step Seven: Gently lay the sugar dough over the cookie. Notice how delicate it now looks. Bet your mouth is watering.

Step Eight: Repeat step two.

Step Nine: Try adding even more water to the paste so you can carefully drizzle it over the remaining cookies, which to be honest are now a little stale because they have been left out for so long awaiting step seven.

Step Ten: Stomp around the kitchen swearing. I find 10 minutes is usually long enough for this. Pour remaining blue gunk down the waste disposal. Dust remaining cookies with icing sugar before feeding to the squirrels.