Do you cook ahead or prepare items for holiday baking in advance?

Sort of.  When I have more zucchini during the summer than I am able to eat before it spoils, I shred a bunch of it and freeze it for later.  In the winter when I am more likely to be baking, I have a nice stash of shredded zucchini for making zucchini breads.

I make sure I have plenty of butter (purchased on sale) in the freezer for holiday baking.  I also save all of my butter wrappers in a ziploc bag in the freezer.  When I need to grease a pan or baking sheet, I use one of these wrappers to do the job.  The small amount of butter left on the wrapper is just enough to grease the pan.

Other than buying a lot of stuff and making out a list of what I want to bake, I don't do a lot of preparing.  I am able to make freeze my grandma's sugar & molasses cookie doughs, which is nice.  I can also make and freeze pie dough if needed.  I have found that if I want to make a lot of cookies for the holidays, which I normally do!, then I need to have a plan for the order in which they get baked.  Sugar cookies, molasses cookies, pecan puffs, etc. all last a long time in lined canisters.  Items like that I'll make at the beginning of December and items that don't last as long are made later in the month closer to when they will be eaten or given as gifts.  I usually end up baking almost every other week night (3 nights a week) during December to make enough of everything we need.

The only preparing I do is buy ingredients on sale and freeze in season fruit/pulp for using later in pies or breads.

DD#2 is doing all the baking. She will bake rolls, two pumpkin pies, one apple pie and then a strawberry cake. DIL #2 wil make a pie for herself as she has many allergies. So no baking for me to do, Babs

gonna get the skinny on how barginsbing's cheese cake went so he better tell me or he is in trouble.