An Annual Pawtuxet Village Cookie Swap Runs Forty Years Strong

Twenty participants each bake twenty dozen holiday cookies and exchange with each other for the annual Vitali Gallo Cookie Swap.

17 hours ago

Jamie Coelho,

From left: Mary Giordano of Cranston (sitting), Alecia Bevilacqua of Smithfield, Marisa Vitali Gallo of Cranston, Madonna Giordano of Providence, and Mary Webb of Pawtucket.

The December issue of Rhode Island Monthly highlights holiday cookie swaps. We tell readers how to organize their own gatherings with friends and family, and provide seven different cookie recipes from local bakeries, pastry chefs and a Ukrainian church, and even a family recipe from Gail Ciampa, the food editor at the Providence Journal.

Once the issue hit mailboxes, we heard from a local group that has been organizing its own cookie swap for forty years at Marisa Vitali Gallo’s home in Cranston’s Pawtuxet Village.

Mary Giordano and Jean Vitali.

“This invitation-only gathering is known for its gourmet standards, generations-deep participation, and its famously strict ‘no mediocre cookies’ rule,” wrote fellow baker Shawna Hassett, who participates in the cookie exchange. The swap features live holiday carolers, festive décor and more than twenty varieties of home-baked cookies, including recipes crafted by the original participants who began the tradition way back in the early-1980s.

Marisa always loved baking cookies with her mom and aunts growing up, so she started the more formal holiday cookie swap as a yearly tradition when her daughter was in kindergarten. “I acquired all these friends that all talked about baking, and so I said, let’s have a cookie swap,” Marisa says. “I remember my oldest daughter Jean-Nicole (Goudie) and her younger sister Alesandra (Pina) were waiting for Santa to show up at the party, and now they bake and participate with several friends. My mom [Jean Vitali], who is ninety-seven, alsi still participates every year.”

Each guest must bring twenty dozen cookies, each pre-packaged in separate containers.

The Giordano family has also always been a part of it, including Marisa’s friend Mary Giordano, and her three daughters. Mary was one of the original bakers, and she continues to participate every year to keep the Christmas spirit alive.

It’s not easy to make the cut for the annual cookie swap. Each baker must prepare twenty dozen cookies to participate; that’s 240 cookies! Cookie varieties must also be approved and taste-tested in advance by Marisa. She provides separate containers for each guest to store each dozen, so at the end of the party, they all go home with twenty containers of different varieties. No chocolate chip, bar cookies or candy allowed. Some of the gourmet recipes include peanut butter balls, cranberry almond biscotti, linzers, chocolate crinkle cookies, egg biscuits, chocolate coconut almond macaroons, ginger snaps and more.

The annual cookie swap party.

But what do they do with twenty dozen cookies, each? “I make up containers with bows and throw some Hershey kisses in them, and then I give them to neighbors and friends,” Marisa says. “We all look forward to spreading a little bit holiday cheer. I just went down to Town Fair Tire, and I gave the guys a container of cookies, and before I left, they were already into it.”

So why not follow their lead and bake cookies at home, swap them with friends, and then spread joy in your own community through sweets?