Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream together the butter and sugar.  Add eggs, one at a time, add vanilla.  Then blend in the ricotta.  In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet.  Drop dough by teaspoons full on cookie sheet. 

Bake 10-12 minutes, cool on wire rack.

Mix sugar, butter, vanilla and cream until soft (adding milk if necessary to achieve smooth consistency) frost tops of cookies, decorate with coconut, sprinkles, nonpariels , colored sugar….depending on the “holiday” (ie red and green sugars on white icing for Christmas, add pastel colors to icing and top with coconut for Easter, etc)