Team 6 Rebel Sweets won First Place, Greatest Christmas Cookie KRV 2024. Photos by Catherine Stachowiak
Contestants were charged up this year, with enthusiasm, for the chamber’s third Great Christmas Cookie Contest, Saturday December 7, at the Kern River Valley Senior Center, in Lake Isabella.
Categories for the event, this year were Best Decorated Table, Best Team Spirit, and Chamber Choice Cookie. The big prize was the Greatest Christmas Cookie in the KRV.
Winners for the Greatest Christmas Cookie in the KRV for 2024 were First Place team 6, “Rebel Sweets.” Winning Second Place in the same category was team 1, “Candyland Crew.” Coming in Third Place for greatest was team 2 “Bee Merry.”
Winning Chamber’s Choice Cookie, First Place was team 1 Candyland Crew. Second Place for Chamber’s Choice was team 6 Rebel Sweets. Coming in Third Place for Chamber’s Choice was team 10 Wonka Winter Wonderland.
Winning First Place in the Best Decorated Table category was Candyland Crew, with an over the top perfect vision of the world’s sweetest candy game. Second Place for the same category was team 10 Wonka Winter Wonderland, which displayed a chocolate waterway reminiscent of Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Coming in Third Place for best decorated was team 5 Snow Angels, a heavenly sight.
The category of Best Team Spirit was a real showdown. Winning First Place was team 7 If Pigs Could Fly. The Bee Merry team won Second Place for that slot. Snow Blowers team won Third Place, and Egg Nog Expert team won Fourth Place.
The two previous Kern River Valley Chamber of Commerce (KRVCC,) events were pretty good indicators of how well the public would receive the third run of the baking competition according to chamber board director Kelley McCoy. The house was fairly full all day.
McCoy said that the first time she planned The Great Christmas Cookie Contest, she got the idea for the event, when she went to a lemonade stand and asked the parents why their kids never attended chamber events. That’s when she realized that the chamber did not have enough chamber events especially for children. Well this year there was a stockpile of toys and games she raffled off to the children attending.
The event, which was free to the public, also had the option of being an official cookie taster and participating in the voting ballot for the favored cookies.
Families got to see chamber president, Fred Clark make an appearance, as the Grinch who stole Christmas. Children participated in a Craft Corner, which the Kern River Valley Art Association provided everything for.
