Every December, my nearby nieces and nephews join my two kids at our house for a cookie-decorating party. On the surface this seems like a fun activity for the little ones, but in reality it's just an excuse to drink wine with my sister-in-laws. I make a big batch of sugar cookies and royal icing and supply several bags of varying colors of icing for the kids to share.

In the past, I've bought small piping bags or squeeze bottles, and I've even used zip-top bags in lieu of piping bags; each has their own set of advantages and disadvantages. This fall, however, I was super excited to find an inexpensive and easy piping bag alternative.

At my local grocery store, right next to the birthday candles and cupcake papers, I discovered these OddleTips and gave them a test while decorating a chocolate cookie house this fall.

They seem like normal piping bags, but — and here's where they win against other bags — they also come with a plastic tip attached to the bag. This is super helpful for tiny hands wielding icing because these tips help direct the flow of icing better than other setups.

Obviously, you could use traditional piping bags with professional-grade tips, but you're also more likely to have one of your nieces squeeze the bag too hard and force the tip out of the bag in an explosion-of-frosting kind of way. The OddleTips tips are sealed directly to the bag, preventing any frosting from forcing the tip out. Plus, depending on how you cut the tips, the frosting pipes out in different patterns (something that's more for the adults because, let's face it, kids' designs tend to look more blob-like no matter what tip you give them).

This inexpensive tip-and-bag combo is much easier for filling and squeezing than most of the cookie-decorating squeeze bottles on the market, and at the end of our cookie-decorating day, I can easily dispose of the bags and spend my time sweeping sprinkles off the floor instead.