Cream together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients in 3 batches. Stir until dough comes together. Form disk with dough and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Roll out cooled dough on a lightly floured surface, roll to ⅛ inch thickness. Cut out shapes. Bake in 350°F for 8-10 minutes…until lightly golden on bottom. Set aside to cool on rack.

Mix up a batch of royal icing. Combine icing sugar, meringue powder and water until icing reaches desired consistency. If you want to pipe on cookies, keep the icing thick. Divide icing into 3 bowls and add red and green food colouring. Transfer icing to resealable plastic bags and clip the corner…create a very small hole. The smaller the hole, the thinner the piping.

Decorate the cookies and set aside to dry completely…about an hour or two.