If you want the most beautiful cookies with a clean edge and smooth surface, you need to be looking into Royal icing. But for flavor, nothing beats buttercream. Unfortunately, that can be a challenge when you want cookies both beautiful and delicious AND you only make sugar cookies once a year, so you don’t get a lot of practice making and using icing.
It is best to use an icing recipe that will crust a bit on the surface so that your cookies can be stacked, but the icing should still be relatively soft to have a pleasant texture. If you need such a recipe, please see my recipe for buttercream cookie icing.
Next, please see the following images for Christmas cookies decorated with buttercream. Many also have decorations found on Amazon and Etsy.
Snowglobes. The main thing I would do differently with these snowglobes would be not trying to pipe around the edges as this made them look much messier. Snowglobes are definitely an area where I have a lot of room to improve!
Little Tudor on the Prairie 