With the holiday season officially in full swing, households nationwide are filled with the smell of freshly baked cookies. Children everywhere are getting in trouble for swiping a finger full of cookie dough from the mixing bowl.

Baking Christmas cookies is a tradition for many families. Those watching their waistlines often wish to participate in this holiday festivity, but fear the cookies will be too tempting to resist, and will inevitably wreck attempts at healthy eating.

Fortunately, lower calories recipes for favorite Christmas cookies are available for those who wish to bake and enjoy the fruits of their labor a bit as well.

Below is a list of low calorie recipes for Christmas cookie favorites:

Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip and Pecan Cookies: With less than 85 calories per cookie, this Cooking Light recipe still manages to include rich chocolate chips and chopped pecans.

Chocolate Coconut Meringues: A chocolate treat that is light and airy, meringues are a terrific cookie option for those counting calories. Each cookie in this EatingWell recipe has only 36 calories.

Gingerbread Cookies: By substituting applesauce for some of the butter required to make most gingerbread cookies, this recipe omits unwanted fat and keep calories under 95 per cookie.

Almond Biscotti: These twice-baked cookies have a mere 62 calories per biscotti and still include nuts, raisins and sugar in the recipe.

Sugar Cookies: With only 64 calories per cookie, adding frosting to decorate these cookies won’t throw the overall calorie total for this Christmas cookie favorite out of whack.