The bakers' dozen is 3,000

Dolores Miller's stove looks pretty ordinary. It's a four-burner, single-oven Tappan range in a shade of brown that was popular in the early '60s, when it was built. (You could also date it by the globe motif emblazoned on its backsplash -- a nod, she says, to the 1964 World's Fair.)

Although there's no way to prove it, this appliance may hold a record for the most cookies ever turned out by a home oven. It gets used throughout the year, but on one particular day -- always the first Saturday in December -- the Miller family puts this sturdy stalwart to the test. That's Christmas cookie day, when Dolores, 82, along with two of her daughters, various other family members, neighbors, and friends come together to bake 3,000 cookies. In one oven. In one home kitchen. In one day.

The family gets an early start, around 8:15 a.m., and goes until sometime in the early evening. This year, the day was clear and crisp, perfect baking weather. The big Dorchester Victorian Dolores and her husband, Richard, have called home since 1959 is a hive of activity. By midmorning, about 1,000 cookies are already cooled and packed away in tins and boxes that are bought, borrowed, and collected throughout the year. The extended Miller family gives away almost all of the cookies as gifts.

For a crew embarking on such a herculean feat, family members are remarkably relaxed. They're a marvel of efficiency. ''It's our German genes," says Dolores, adding that it also works because ''there's not a boss here. We just know instinctively what to do and how to do it."

It does resemble a carefully choreographed ballet. Dolores makes the dough one batch at a time in her KitchenAid mixer. Although there are flavor and shape variations, she uses one basic butter-cookie dough, which helps keep things simple. The dough is too rich and soft to be rolled and cut, but it's perfect for an old-fashioned cookie press, which turns out pretty shapes quickly. The star disk, for instance, makes ridged strips, which are shaped by hand after the dough is pressed.

Dolores also does the shopping -- for 25 pounds of flour and 14 pounds of butter. She keeps a sharp eye out for bargains in the weeks leading up to baking day.

The original recipe came with the first Mirro cookie press Dolores bought. She has added salt and other extracts besides the vanilla it calls for. When the dough is mixed, daughter Doreen Miller, 49, who lives down the street, begins shaping with the cookie press, turning out wreaths, trees, and candy canes. The little hand-held machine can be a bit tricky to use, but she's had plenty of experience over the years. Her advice? Get a sturdy press. The one she's using these days is a heavy-duty model from Williams-Sonoma (see story below). ''We learned the hard way," she says, recalling an early disaster. ''There was one year we used a plastic one. We didn't make it through the morning."

Decorating -- what some might call the fun part --falls to various friends and neighbors who drop by throughout the day. There are bowls of red and green sugar, mini M&M's, jimmies, and edible silver and gold beads. As Doreen finishes pressing, she passes the trays of cookies over to the decorating station. Neighbor Filomena Maciel, who's here with her teenage daughter and her daughter's friend, exclaims over the trees she's just sprinkled with green jimmies and topped with a single red M&M: ''My trees look so good! I feel like a little kid."

The job of rotating the baking sheets in and out of the oven falls to Dolores's other daughter, Karen Jackson, 52, who lives downstairs with her husband. It's no simple feat: The oven can hold four narrow baking sheets, and each goes in at a different time. Moreover, Karen keeps a running total of how many cookies are on each sheet. Instead of using a timer, she keeps track in her head and never burns a batch.

As soon as the cookies come out, Karen removes them from the sheets and puts them on the counter. Taking them off the sheets immediately is key, she says: ''That's one of my secrets. Otherwise, they get soggy."

In the days following baking day, tins will be packed up and mailed to far-flung relatives and friends, who've come to rely on their annual supply. ''When I pack them for mailing," says Dolores, ''I like to put a layer of trees on top, with a wreath in the middle. That says 'Merry Christmas.' " An avid quilter, she uses bits of batting to pad the tins and avoid breakage.

At 6:15 p.m., the last cookies are baked. This year's grand total is a new record: 3,378. Time for dinner. But the trusty range is done for the day. Even this tireless baking crew has its limits.

''On cookie day," says Dolores, ''We send out for pizza or Chinese."