it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

christmas music has been playing in my car non-stop probably since thanksgiving and there was actual snowfall so christmas is definitely less than a week away! not that any present buying has occurred but that's a work in progress. my sweet shop blog is coming along and i finished my first order (check it out).

walking through old ellicott city the windows for the shops are decked out in full holiday happiness!

 it's amazing how the pink and purple ended up looking so festive!

i almost thought about trying to hanging ornaments with ribbon against the white wall that runs along our stairs but wasn't sure if it would hang right...

and of course, holidays = holiday baking!

Double chocolate coconut peanut butter cookies (now that's a delicious mouthful!)
1 box chocolate cake mix
1 can condensed milk
about 1/2 cup coconut*
about 1 cup peanut butter (we used smooth, but crunchy works too)
about 1 1/2 - 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients and then roll into however large cookies you would like and bake for 10-15 minutes (depending on the size) until the bottoms are browning (which is a bit more difficult with cookies that are already brown, but they do have a different color!). these cookies sink and harden a bit once they cool so don't worry too much if they are very soft when they first come out of the oven, just make sure the bottoms are brown.

the coconuts give it a nice crunch, i'm sure lots of different add-ins would be great. some holiday colored chips would also probably be adorable. these are about the easiest and tastiest cookies ever