1. Cream butter, sugar, egg yolk, salt and extract in large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy.
2. Add flour, if dough is too dry add a tablespoon of water to blend.
3. Divide dough into 2 flatten discs. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill 2 hours  or overnight.
4. Remove from oven and allow to sit 25 minutes to soften.
5. Preheat oven to 350. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, set aside.
6. Roll out dough on floured surface to 1/8″ thickness.  Cut large round cookies and place on baking sheets 2″ apart.  With smaller cutter cut out center of each cookie. Bake smaller cut outs on separate baking sheet for even baking.
7. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.  Allow to cool from oven 5 minutes before removing from baking sheet.
8. At this point, you can wrap and freeze these baked cookies.  Freezing frosted cookies is not recommended, but you can if you wrap well and place in sealed container. Stacking cookies might mess up our designs.
9. Buttercream Frosting and Decorating:
   

   Mix all ingredients together for frosting.  Beat until smooth and creamy.  Divide frosting into 2 bowls, add green food gel to one bowl and red to the other.  Stir to mix.  Add more gel drops if you want a brighter red and green frosting.  You can make the frosting ahead and store covered in refrigerator until ready to decorate.

To Decorate cookies. In two disposable bags one fitted with tip # 233 and one with # 5, place the green frosting in the grass tip #233 and red into # 5.  Pipe wreaths using small circles over the cookie to make an evergreen looking shape.  Pipe small red dots for berries or larger dots for ornaments onto the green wreath.  Pipe red bow at top of wreath as in photo.  Store cookies in covered container until ready to serve.