Celebrating the Holidays with Cookies for Santa and Books for your Readers...

Holiday baking got you overwhelmed? No worries. I've got you covered. These are the best oatmeal cookies you’ll ever eat. Perfect for serving with tea or coffee during unexpected (or expected) visitor drop-ins during the holiday season, this recipe is guaranteed to make you (or Santa) smile with each bite. These cookies make wonderful gifts too. Fill a festive cookie tin from the dollar store to create the perfect present for teachers, baby-sitters, hair-stylists, and neighbors. You're welcome!

FESTIVE OATMEAL COCONUT COOKIES

Photo by Monika Grabkowska on Unsplash

1½ cups brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
¾ cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
1 cup oats
1 cup crispy rice cereal (such as Rice Krispies®)
1 cup flaked coconut

PREHEAT oven to 350° F (175° C).

BEAT sugars and butter together with an electric mixer in a large bowl until smooth. Add 1 egg at a time, allowing the first to blend into the mixture before adding the next. Add the vanilla.

STIR flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder together in a bowl. Beat into the butter mixture until just incorporated into the dough.

FOLD oats, crispy rice cereal, and coconut into the dough. Mix just enough to evenly combine.

DROP cookie dough by teaspoonful onto baking sheets.

BAKE until browned, 8-9 minutes.

COOL cookies slightly on baking sheets before moving to cooling racks to cool completely. Store in airtight containers.

I recommend you sample the cookies along with your favorite beverage and crack open one of my books. May I suggest a visit to Fairy Falls, or if you’re feeling really adventurous, a trip back in time with The Last Timekeepers? Whichever you choose, I guarantee either series will make the perfect gift for the avid reader in your home this holiday season.

Children are the keys to our future. And now, children are the only hope for our past.

When 13-year-old Amanda Sault and her annoying classmates are caught in a food fight at school, they're given a choice: suspension or yard duty. The decision is a no-brainer. Their two-week crash course in landscaping leads to the discovery of a weathered stone arch in the overgrown back yard. The arch isn't a forgotten lawn ornament but an ancient time portal from the lost continent of Atlantis.

Chosen by an Atlantean Magus to be Timekeepers--legendary time travelers sworn to keep history safe from the evil Belial--Amanda and her classmates are sent on an adventure of a lifetime. Can they find the young Robin Hood and his merry band of teens? If they don't, then history itself may be turned upside down.

Fairy Falls was bores-ville from the get-go. Then the animals started talking...

The Fairy Falls Animal Shelter is in trouble. Money trouble. It’s up to an old calico cat named Whiskey—a shelter cat who has mastered the skill of observation—to find a new human pack leader so that their home will be saved. With the help of Nobel, the leader of the shelter dogs, the animals set out to use the ancient skill of telepathy to contact any human who bothers to listen to them. Unfortunately for fifteen-year-old Meagan Walsh, she hears them, loud and clear.

Forced to live with her Aunt Izzy in the safe and quiet town of Fairy Falls, Meagan is caught stealing and is sentenced to do community hours at the animal shelter where her aunt works. Realizing Meagan can hear her, Whiskey realizes that Meagan just might have the pack leader qualities necessary to save the animals. Avoiding Whiskey and the rest of shelter animals becomes impossible for Meagan, so she finally gives in and promises to help them. Meagan, along with her newfound friends, Reid Robertson and Natalie Knight, discover that someone in Fairy Falls is not only out to destroy the shelter, but the animals as well. Can Meagan convince her aunt and co-workers that the animals are in danger? If she fails, then all the animals’ voices will be silenced forever.