Aside from simple sugar cookies, my favorites are jam thumbprints (I love the delicious laziness of them), vanillekipferl, spekulatius, and heidesand. Oh, and lebkuchen - I generally end up buying that because it's hard to find the oblaten around here, but there's a health food store that was originally run by Germans and still does a lot of German imports. (Prices are high, but for lebkuchen I'll pay. Speku I brought back with me in September - it was only just out in the stores, and I got some odd looks from the clerk at the supermarket checkout until I explained. 'I'm American, this same package if I buy it at home will cost $5! So I'm buying it now and hoarding it until Christmas!')

Sadly, no family varieties here - mom's side didn't really do cookies, and dad's side lost any German recipes long ago, they're all generic American sugar cookies, chocolate chip, or chocolate kisses.