This morning at Holiday Cookie Contest World Headquarters, we gathered in a conference room, the table covered in cookies. Sixteen kinds of cookies, to be exact. We tasted, we compared notes, we discussed and we voted.

We have a winner (they will soon find a $200 gift card to a local cooking store in their mailbox), and four finalists. Bake them for yourself when we publish the results of our 8th-annual holiday cookie contest in Taste on Dec. 2. Here's another save-the-date reminder: Meet our bakers on Saturday, Dec. 4 at the Mill City Museum.