Monday, December 25, 2023

Merry Christmas Simply Stated

Bag: Macy's

Sweater: Target

Coat: Zulily

Smithville

Sweater: Jeanne Pierre, Marshalls

Bow: Hobby Lobby

Smithville

Top: Target

Hair clip: Target

Bag: Simply Vera, Kohl's

No quippy commentary today.  Just some pics from this past week and my heartfelt wish that you had a merry Christmas. 🎄💖🎁

Quips will resume next post. 😏

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Cozy Christmas Crime Time


Christmas can be murder.  Wrapping, baking, and decorating are enough to make even Santa's helpers head for hibernation.  That's why it's so satisfying to leave it all behind and disappear into a Christmas-themed murder mystery.  There's something soothing about sitting back as the heroines deal with last-minute guests plus all manner of pests and put up their trees at the eleventh hour.  In other words, whatever stress fest you've got going on will seem peaceful in comparison to catching a killer.  Here are two Christmas cozies I enjoyed this week:    

In Jenn McKinlay's Sugar Plum Poisoned, cupcake queen Mel DeLaura nÊe Cooper is already inundated with holiday orders when she takes on a baking gig for singer Shelby Vaughn.  But then Shelby's shifty manager bites the big one, and rumor has it that it might be because he bit into one of Mel's cupcakes.  What's a baker to do?  Investigate!  Well, that and prepare to host fifty-plus of her nearest and dearest for Christmas.  Both make for a nerve-wracking -- and entertaining -- Noel.  


In Lee Hollis's Death of a Christmas Caterer, food columnist Hayley Powell is in a pickle when the caterer she hired for the Island Times Christmas party is murdered.  Now the pressure's on to discover the killer before Santa slides down the chimney.  As if hunting down a homicidal maniac isn't hard enough, Hayley's also juggling not one, not two, but three suitors.  Will one of them turn out to be the wise man she wants, or just another elf to shelve?  Only time -- and mistletoe -- will tell.


Before I go, here's something else cozy: Christmas in Cape May.  This pic's from four years ago, but the magic remains.  

As far as I know, there were no murders.    

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Bigger and Bolder, Brighter and Golder: Brooching the Accessory Subject

Coat and blouse: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's

Headband: INC, Macy's


Dress: Planet Gold, Macy's


Every Christmas, I make some more festive brooches.  And like every savvy small businesswoman, I list them a few days before Christmas so that no one can buy and receive them before the big day.  Also, they're not really brooches, but barrette brooches.  Which means that they don't have a pin, but an alligator clip.  In other words, you can clip them to a coat collar or neckline but not through a sweater.  

Am I killing it or what?

Clearly, "or what."

But that's okay.  Because this year I decided to make brooches -- er, barrette brooches -- that are more ornate and embellished than any I've ever made before.  And that satisfies my crafter's soul, practicalities be damned.

So here's to doing Christmas your way.  

Even if that means being way, way behind. 

Friday, December 15, 2023

Pop Culture Puns and Trees by the Ton

Print: Michaels

A cactus is a kind of tree, especially when it's dressed up for Christmas.  Even if it doesn't grow in New Jersey save for in print form on my wall.  Who knows.  If I saw real cacti every day, then maybe I wouldn't like them as much.  Luckily, I'm rooted in the Garden State, which means I'll never need to find out.

Cacti do grow in Idaho, which just happens to be the setting of the last book I read, Codi Hall's There's Something About Merry.  The sequel to Nick and Noel's Christmas Playlist (which I read last year), it centers around the Winters Christmas Tree Farm and the festively-named family that owns it.  Middle child Merry loves the farm so much that she wants to run it someday.  So she's bummed when her dad hires someone else to do just that.  Clark Griffin (who, although not a Winters, isn't immune to the "merry" moniker theme; his favorite holiday flick is Christmas Vacation) is no longer the lanky, long-haired nerd that popular Merry crushed on back in high school.  Now a single dad, he's assertive but still reticent, his quiet nature masking a wound.  Yet when he and Merry connect on a dating app, their chemistry is palpable.  As a writer and an introvert, I love an epistolary getting-to-know-you, and this one is especially sweet.  But perhaps the best thing about it is that it doesn't go on forever.  Merry and Clark discover each other's identities early.  So instead of being the entire story, the online dating trope serves as more of a prologue, building tension and layers.  Because who says romcoms can't be deep?

Not this fool for love.  And cacti. 💖đŸŒĩ

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Faux Fur for Real

Coat: Jou Jou, Macy's

Nutcracker: Gifted (and what a gift it was!)

Coat: Nine West, Kohl's

Bag: Delia's, Dolls Kill

Coat: Worthington, JCPenney

Ornaments: Michaels

Coat: So, Kohl's

Shoes: Betsey Johnson, Macy's

Sweater: Express

Faux fur is for real.  After all, what beats the winter blues better than synthetic fluff in cruelty-free colors?  Even if I considered the alternate title Faux Fur, My Chauffeur.  Because these coats take me wherever I want to go -- which is anywhere and everywhere as long as I'm wrapped in cozy and kitschy.  To that point, the first pic was taken two years ago at Smithville, one of the coziest -- and cutest! -- places around.

Who knows where my outerwear will take me next?  Hopefully, not the DMV.

I wasn't kidding about that chauffeur.

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Season's Readings: A Novel Noel


Somehow, it's December.  And I still haven't started decorating.  This pic is from last year, which is kind of like it being from this year because the fireplace will look the same.  Then again, the last month of the year isn't just for decking the halls -- it's for season's readings!  And I'm excited to kick off the Kringle book club with Jenny Bayliss's A December to Remember and Mary Kay Andrews's The Santa Suit.

A December to Remember is just as cozy as its cover.  (So, nothing like those Lexus commercials.  Who buys a car at Christmas, let alone a Lexus?!).  Three estranged sisters reconvene in the idyllic English countryside of Rowan Thorp to carry out the terms of their late father's will.  A wanderlust-struck eccentric, Augustus North sends salt-of-the-earth Maggie, sophisticated Simone, and free-spirited Star scrambling on a scavenger hunt to claim the money that he cached for them to resurrect Rowan Thorp's famed winter solstice celebration.  In working together, they squabble but ultimately reconnect, which is perhaps (insert heart emojis) the biggest prize of all.  A December to Remember is on brand for Bayliss and is just the kind of quirky, hipster fairy tale that warms my heart at this time of year. 

Similarly, The Santa Suit sparkles with poignant nostalgia.  City girl Ivy Perkins moves to a North Carolina farmhouse to heal from her divorce.  Yet Four Roses Farm turns out to need more love than Ivy anticipated.  Luckily, her realtor Ezra Wheeler is only too happy to help her with her busted hot water heater and drafty windows.  What's more, Ivy finds a beautiful Santa suit in a closet with a note tucked inside.  All Carlette wants for Christmas is for her father to return from Vietnam.  Touched, Ivy sets out to uncover what happened to Carlette and her family.  Along the way, she makes two life-changing friends and finds the home she always wanted.  Andrews weaves small-town charm, seasonal suspense, and old-fashioned romance with all the Christmas magic of a ribbon glittering through evergreen.  Short but sweet, The Santa Suit is a joy to read, making you believe that, in December, all things are possible.

Hopefully, that extends to me getting that tree up. 

Monday, December 4, 2023

The Colors of Christmas

Bag: Skinnydip London, Macy's

Top: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's



Skirt: Vanilla Star, Macy's

Top: So, Kohl's


Bag: Zulily

Jacket: Worthington, JCPenney


Coat: So, Kohl's

Dress: Nine West, Kohl's

Um, "the colors of Christmas?"  Tote Trove lady, what do leopard, rainbows, and a fruit-themed barrette have to do with Santa and sawed-off trees?  Absolutely nothing.  Unless you count that partridge in a pear tree, which I do not (so unsanitary!).  But it's as good an excuse as any to bridge the gap between autumn's fiery hues and the candy-colored jewel tones that light up the holiday season.  I'd toss an ornament or two into the mix just because, but they're all still tucked away in their boxes.

As well they should be.  No need to rush things.  

Or rattle that partridge.