’Tis the season for family, festivities and eating too many cookies. And while everyone loves a classic gingerbread man, Neapolitan shops and bakeries offer plenty of other holiday-themed treats to tempt your sweet tooth.

At Sassy Cakes, baker-owner Jazmine Cuccuini loves to experiment with whimsical cake flavors.

“Throughout the year, we see things trending online or [we think of ] desserts from childhood that bring up nostalgia, and we turn them into cake,” she said.

During the holidays, she’s riffing on two classic indulgences: peppermint bark and hot chocolate. For her Peppermint White Chocolate Cake, she layers white chocolate cake and Christmas Crack filling studded with crunchy candy-cane pieces and salty pretzels, then frosts the cake and decorates it with a red drip effect and shards of peppermint bark.

Chocoholics should opt for the double chocolate Hot Cocoa Cake. The magic is in the buttercream, which Cuccuini enriches with marshmallow fluff and hot cocoa powder, evoking a sense of childhood nostalgia.

Peppermint is also on deck at Narrative Coffee Roasters. The Mercato shop has several seasonal drinks on the menu, including a cinnamon-dusted snickerdoodle latte sweetened with cookie butter syrup, mulled chai, a popular peppermint mocha and an Old Fashioned shaken espresso inspired by the flavors of the classic cocktail (without the whiskey).

While you’re there, pick up a bag of the limited-edition Sweater Weather blend. A mix of Tanzanian and Honduran beans, the medium roast boasts notes of dark cherry, milk chocolate and cranberry — and it’s perfect for gift-giving.

Coffee pairs well with many of the Italian Christmas delicacies at Ambrosi & Sons. Shelves are stocked with buttery cookies, nut-filled nougat and grappa-soaked cherries enrobed in dark chocolate. Chief among the sweet offerings is panettone, a fluffy sweet bread studded with candied or dried fruits.

“We have it for breakfast with coffee and for dessert with prosecco,” owner Rudy Ambrosi said. “It lets you know it’s the holidays.”

Recognizing not everyone enjoys candied citrus peel and raisins, Ambrosi curates a wide selection of flavors from artisanal bakers such as Pasticceria Filippi and Bonifanti, including lemon, fig, pistachio cream and chocolate-cherry.

“My favorite is the candied chestnut,” he said. “It’s probably the least-selling one, which is good and bad because at the end of the year, there’s probably a few left and I’m going to eat them.”

Lots of local bakeries offer frosted sugar cookies this time of year, but microbakery A Blessed Little Bake Shoppe wants little ones to get in on the action. In early December, owner and mom Adrianna Pantoja announced the pre-sale of her annual cookie kits.

Each contains a dozen individually wrapped vanilla sugar cookies; ready-touse piping bags of red, white and green frosting; and colorful Christmas sprinkles.

“We brought the kits when we went away for Christmas last year, and the kids had so much fun decorating the cookies,” Pantoja said.

At Angelic Bakery & Desserts, the holiday spirit means making sure no one feels left out. Owner Marina Nikolic did many rounds of research and testing to develop an adaptable recipe for iced sugar cookies that can be made gluten- or dairy-free. Her European-style yule log can be adapted to omit gluten, as well, without compromising the quality of the moist chocolate cake and fluffy buttercream.

Of course, every Southwest Floridian knows the best gifts come in little limegreen boxes. That’s the calling card of Norman Love Confections. Development of the chocolatier’s limited-edition holiday collection begins over the summer.

“We sit down and talk about customer favorites and then create a balance between popular favorites and creating new flavors,” Love said, noting the brand sells millions of chocolates between Christmas and Mother’s Day.

This year, the Holiday Collection counts rum-infused eggnog, minty dark chocolate, habanero-spiced hot cocoa and hazelnut praline among its 10 flavors. Love also debuted a Hanukkah Collection last month, which draws inspiration from classic Jewish recipes: babka, coconut macaroons, berry blintzes and raspberry-filled sufganiyot doughnuts.

“Flavors are the star of the show,” he said. “New ideas make us who we are.”