Working@Duke 2025 Holiday Cookbook Offers 14 Recipes to Sweeten Your Season

Becky Briggs’ sister, Treci Rogers, bakes holiday cookies with Briggs’ daughter, Lorisa, when she was 4 as part of their annual family tradition. Photo courtesy of Becky Briggs

Published
December 15, 2025

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Jodie Valade

Senior Writer, Working@Duke

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HR
Staff
Faculty

Among Becky Briggs’ earliest and sweetest childhood memories are all the times she spent baking holiday cookies with her mother and two sisters.

Truth be told, Briggs’ mother, D.J. Kohler, did the baking and decorating of her “Christmas Cut-Outs.” But Kohler gave scraps of dough to Briggs, an Appointment Coordinator at the Center for Surgical Weight Loss at Lake Norman, so she could feel like a part of the seasonal ritual – leaving the precise decoration of every shape reserved for Kohler.

Santa Claus always had vivid blue eyes and snowmen wore black top hats adorned with miniature holly berries on the brim. The frosting for all cookies included vibrant hues of reds and greens.

“Anything to make it more detailed and special,” Briggs said.

Kohler died in 2021, but Briggs keeps her legacy alive each holiday season by baking cookies with the same recipe her mother used and decorating each shape according to family tradition.

Briggs’ “Christmas Cut-Outs” is among the 14 recipes compiled from Duke staff and faculty as part of a submission request for Working@Duke’s 2025 Holiday Cookie cookbook. It’s the same recipe that Briggs, her older sister, Treci Rogers, and their children still re-create each year.

“Our kids are in their 30s and their 20s, but even now they’ll still come and decorate cookies because it’s just a special memory for all of us,” Briggs said.

Even if they’re not decorated exactly the way Kohler used to frost the cookies, Briggs guarantees they are worth baking.

“It’s the most phenomenal recipe,” Briggs said. “You need to make them. You will not be disappointed, I promise you.”

Click the image below to download your personal copy of the Holiday Cookie cookbook:

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