I compared store-bought ginger cookies and the cheapest, most festive kind was also my favorite

• I tried three kinds of packaged ginger cookies from the grocery store.

• Tate's gluten-free ginger zinger cookies impressed me with bits of crystallized ginger.

• However, Little Debbie's iced gingerbread cookies blew me away.

Nothing says the holiday season like a ginger cookie for dessert.

I tried three kinds of ginger cookies, which can all be found on most grocery-store shelves and pack just the right amount of spice for the holiday season.

Here's how they ranked, from worst to best.

My least favorite brand of cookie was Tate's Bake Shop's gingersnap cookies.

The bag cost $5.79 at my local Key Food Marketplace.

The bag came with 14 cookies.

This is comparable to other brands of packaged cookies I usually buy.

The cookies were very crispy, but they were not hard to bite into.

Sometimes I find ginger snaps can be a little tough, but these ones crumbled easily.

The cookies were a touch too spicy for my liking.

The cookies tasted strongly of spices like cinnamon and molasses, but were slightly off-balance when it came to sweetness, I thought.

These cookies were borderline spicy, which I'm personally not a huge fan of. However, I did enjoy the texture.

Next up were Tate's gluten-free ginger zinger cookies.

These cookies cost $6.99 at my local Key Food Marketplace, making them the most expensive of the cookies I tried.

Like the other kind of Tate's cookies, the package came with 14 cookies.

However, unlike the ginger snaps, these cookies supposedly contained pieces of crystallized ginger. I was excited to see how the flavors would measure up.

The cookies were about the same size as the ginger snaps but slightly thicker.

I could also see the pieces of ginger on the surface of the crispy cookies.

These cookies were sweet, with just the right amount of ginger flavor.

I loved the texture of the crispy cookies and the crystallized ginger and thought these were just as good as any non-gluten-free cookies I've ever tried.

My favorite of the three kinds of ginger cookies was the Christmas gingerbread soft cookies from Little Debbie.

A box of eight cookies cost $2.79 at my local Stop & Shop grocery store. They were the least expensive, but the box also contained the fewest cookies.

Each cookie came individually wrapped.

I thought these cookies would be a really cute touch for a festive school lunch or snack on-the-go.

The cookies were sweeter than the other two kinds I tried.

The icing and smattering of red and green sprinkles upped the sweetness, but I also preferred the softer texture of these gingerbread cookies compared to the other two kinds.

Aesthetically, I also thought these were the most festive for the holiday season.

The cookies brought me back to my childhood with their perfect balance of sweetness, spiciness, and soft texture.

While I enjoyed all of these cookies, I would choose the classic gingerbread cookies for a sweet, festive treat.

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