What I Wore: I'll Have a Faux Christmas

My family is all over the world right now: I have one brother holding down the fort in our hometown (watching the familial dogs, natch) one in Japan with his wife and her family, one in England for school (and complaining about the food) and one in Vancouver. And unfortunately, no one is going to be home for Christmas this year, so my parents came down to pre-game and throw a faux Christmas with my kids for the whole last week.

We used to call it "fake Christmas" but my mom didn't like it. 

It's funny, because I feel like it should be like, December 24th already: We've done all of our holiday traditions in one week so I'm confused. Yesterday, we did a full present exchange, complete with the part where I fall asleep on the couch while my mom cooks an enormous ham dinner. It was glorious. We've also seen lights at Temple Square, done a crazy amount of shopping and played with my kids' Zoomer Dinos (from Gigi and Poppy) for roughly eight hours yesterday. 

One of them nuzzled me and I've developed feelings for it. Her name is Zoe.

Anyway, this is what I wore for our day of faux Christmas merrymaking on Friday. We headed up to Salt Lake to shop at City Creek, have dinner and see the lights. And remind myself why I live in the middle of nowhere because I don't like people or public bathrooms.

It was blissfully balmy, which was new: Usually you're rubbing up against strangers in Temple Square in an effort to stay warm. I only wore a green military jacket over this at night; otherwise, I got to go coatless and it was lovely for December. 

Top: kensie (here and on sale!)  (I really wanted it in leopard but everything I own is leopard so my friend bought it instead and I can still love it from afar. That's a good friend.)

Pants: Calvin Klein (here). I lost a couple sizes and my beloved H&M leather pants don't fit anymore so I had to buy new ones because life without a pair of leather pants basically isn't worth living. Also these have an elastic waistband. AN ELASTIC WAISTBAND.

Shoes: Call it Spring (sold out, sad) (similar) (similar)

Necklace, yes I'm wearing it again I can't stop: Cara, via Nordstrom (here) (cheaper option)

Watch, on sale!! 

My parents go home tomorrow and I guess we'll go back to celebrating mainstream Christmas which is like, a hipster's nightmare. And THEN!! I have my citizenship interview this week, because nothing says holiday spirit like getting grilled on questions Americans don't even know the answers to. After the 10th, I'll either be primed to be American or being deported, so get ready for that.

Hey, I might be home for Christmas after all. 

Freaky Friday: Deck the Halls

I've got family in town, so I'm reposting. Please forgive me. Let's pretend it's still funny a year later?

 The more I look this picture, the more I laugh. It's not so much the sweater, but the "I have no idea what I'm doing" look on Rudolph's face.

 Ugh, who even started the whole "Team" thing? You don't need to be on any team. It's the holidays. Can't we all just get along?

 How can a festive sweatsuit make me feel so sad inside?

PS I can't see the bottom of these pants but I just KNOW there's elasticized cuffs. 

 Oh... OK, that's cool.

 .....

 This is my favorite festive sweater of ALL TIME. Look at those happy dreidels! They're all like "You don't have to celebrate Christmas to have a good time" and I'm like "You're right I totally want in on this Hanukkah thing!"

 I love these mopey teenager "Things I love" pictures. They are so freakin' specific. Wearing sweaters around the house? Are we just naming things we do every day that aren't special at all?

"Paying bills."

"Waiting in line at the grocery store."

"Pumping gas."

"Breathing."

Wow. So true.

 Aw, look! You get loneliness for Christmas!

 That's one way to spread Christmas cheer.

 OK, the cat's paws look like saggy boobs and now I can't unsee it. It's like how my husband says that Sara Bareilles song "Brave" sounds like it's saying "I wanna see you pee-pee" and I can't unhear it EVER.

 Feeling festive? Do some pattern mixing, wear your husband's socks and then look reeeeeally unimpressed and you can spend Christmas alone.

From the "Every 2nd grade teacher ever" collection.

Speaking of which, the other day my little brother was sending me pictures of my first grade report cards and they said things like "Jacqueline is an excellent galloper" and "She reads from the dictionary and wrote a story about blisters."

I was a really cool kid is what I am saying.

 Let's finish strong and not forget that leaving out cookies is like, soooo mainstream. If you really want to impress him, leave some indie music on the record player and Santa might leave you a corded phone and some bangs.

Gift Guide Refresher

I am still in the throes of gift shopping right now. This is the time of year when the mail girl hates my guts because I have something coming to the house every day. Also, I'm terrible at keeping track of everything that I order, so it's like a tiny Christmas for me each time a box shows up at my door because I don't remember what it could be.

So, since I'm in RoboShop mode right now, I thought I'd link up to last year's gift guides. Since I focus on specific types of gifts (rather than a specific product) it's kind of an easy way to match the right person to the right prezzies.

For Coworkers and Neighbors
For Your BFF
For Your Husband 
For You
For Your Kids 

Hopefully that helps narrow down choices and relieves a bit of the stress that comes with gift giving. And hey, it's only the 3rd: You have plenty of time to drive yourself crazy for the next three weeks. Enjoy!

What I Wore: Burnout

How was everyone's Thanksgiving week? I'm not gonna lie, I was in pure burnout mode last night. After five straight days of family festivities, all I wanted to do was hide in a quiet room and read a book by myself. Which I totally did, by the way. 

I also came down with a cold over the week, which means I have a man voice low enough to impress Barry White himself. I have three conference calls tomorrow and I can't wait for my client to be like "No, I needed to talk to Jae the woman." 

Shopping-wise, I did OK. I'm already Cyber Mondaying it up but I don't feel as prepped as I usually do at this point in time. My parents are flying in the day after tomorrow, so I plan on dragging my mom around to every store in the valley until I feel like I'm done. Or burned out. 

Top: Adrienne (local boutique) I'm obsessed with this green! (similar) (similar)

Skirt: Arden B. (from like, three Christmases ago) (cute and cheap!) (plus omg so cute)

Shoes: Steve Madden can you tell they're blue? (similar) (similar)

Necklace, which I bought Saturday and am super excited about (here)

I looked polished and put-together yesterday, but never fear: Burnout has a way of finding me in my husband's pajama pants, a bun and glasses come Monday morning. I just need to get my hermit on for a couple of days and I'll be fine.

Tis the season, right? 

What I Wore: Snow Leopard

My husband's an architect, right? So sometimes, I tag along when he has to go meet with clients on consults or whatever. Not all the time, because that would be weird and clingy, but on Friday night he had to go meet with someone about restoring an old cabin like, 90 miles away so I went with.

We met the guy and then followed him up to his place. We drove. And drove. And drove to somewhere I didn't even know existed. Then I started to become worried that the guy was an axe murderer. And it was snowy and cold and we'd get stuck at his cabin and he'd put us in his freezer or something.

I'm typing this now, so obviously it didn't happen. In fact, he was a very nice man and not an axe murderer at all, despite the fact that he did pick up a hatchet near his fireplace to move it over and I was worried for a second there.

Also, it was COLD. I was very happy to be wearing a fat leopard scarf that I could burrow into while my husband was talking about support beams and other riveting stuff.

Top: Kensie (similar) (similar) (plus)

Jacket: Absolutely & Faith (similar) (cute and cheap!)

Pants: Calvin Klein (sold out of the other ones but I love these too)

Boots: Frye (here) (pretty!) (cheap)

Scarf: Croft & Barrow (from my friend, T) (similar) (similar)

Studs: F21

 This week I'm happy to not have been chopped into bitty pieces, but also stressed about the craziness coming up. Thanksgiving, amiright? Posting will be light around here, but I'll put up some greatest hits on what to wear and how to shop this week, k? YAY! Happy Thanksgiving week! 

Freaky Friday

You guys: I went to a midnight showing of Hunger Games with some friends last night and I am like, mom hungover today. Luckily I just have everything to do so I can't even have a nap. My daughter's school is having a big program today and she was so excited she was up at 6 am sounding like Buddy the Elf and pinging off the walls. 

I'm just sitting here nursing a Crystal Light and talking in a man voice. I'm too old for this stuff. Also, the movie was good, although I felt like it was a little slow and then jammed every piece of action into the last five minutes and I was overwhelmed and regretted the Cherry Coke I drank because I was super twitchy when I got home and tried to go to sleep. Now that is an excellent movie review if I ever heard one.

Also, there was a preview for a Gwyneth Paltrow movie and I felt like the universe was punishing me for being annoyed at her gold juicer. 

On to Freaky Friday! 

Where exactly does one wear a gauze, see-though, floor-length, sleeveless duster? That is too many descriptive words for one garment. 

Tansy sent a snap of these to prove that we're just like, not even trying anymore.

Also, I know this is from H&M because I shop there on the reg, but isn't it like, a store for 20-somethings? What person of that age is like "Oh yeah, I so want to look like a census demographic I AM NOT." 

Thanks for sending this shoe, Julie. I'll wear it the next time I'm playing a game of pickup basketball in the woods. 

Brenda sent this dress, which is Yoko Ono levels of WTH.

YEAH I SAID IT Yoko Ono is crazy. Come at me, weird commenters!

Can I just say I reaaaaaaally dislike when people wear shorts over tights? Especially in the winter? You put those shorts away like a normal human being. Pants are punishment for living in cold climates. 

But then you go too far in the other direction and end up looking like a faaaaabulous Jon Snow.

This 80s sweater owns my soul. I want to wear it with spandex and scrunchies all day while whispering secrets to my PJ Sparkles doll. (It was my only doll that survived the "My older brother just learned how to do graffiti and scrawled all over my dolls' faces" epidemic of 1989.)

So, when I was in elementary school, there was a teacher there (who I am almost positive was named Mr. Blakelock though my mind is a little fuzzy there) who grew a beard each year and then raffled off the rights to shave his face to the students in a lottery called Beardo 649. And it wasn't until I was much older that I realized that it's a little creepy to raffle off shaving rights. 

Also, rumor was that he took the beard hair home and made it into pillows but I can neither confirm nor deny. 

Anyway, I feel like he would have really enjoyed this face hat in the interim while growing out his beard for the next child face shaver. 

I'm not making this any less weird, am I? 

I'm sure the ruffle on this dress is really nice IRL but online it just looks like an unfortunately placed triangle and/or uterus diagram. 

Aaaand with that said, I'm going to go jam a full day's work into two hours and pack for a weekend at the cabin and somehow carve out a few hours to go watch the back of someone's phone as they film their child DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF MY FACE.

It's my favorite part of school programs, really.

Deciphering Gwyneth Paltrow's Annual GOOP Gift Guide

Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't know why everyone hates her, but Gwyneth Paltrow also suggests that we purchase solid gold juicing machines (I WISH I WERE KIDDING) so I take her feelings with a massive grain of salt.

Yes, it's the time of year again. When GP reminds us how rich she is with upper-crust gift ideas that literally no one wants. Seriously, I would be like "You are a millionaire and you gave me something other than money? PLEASE LEAVE."

It occurred to me, as I was rage-paging through the gift guide, that some of the gifts might be a little confusing for anyone who makes less than $15 mil a year and who people actually like, so I took it upon myself to decipher some of the gifts, what they mean and who would actually enjoy receiving them.

Because this blog is just helpful like that. And guess what? I'm affiliate linking the crap out of them. One day I'll be a nasal-y millionaire too.

The Smythson Currency Case: $285
Best for: Your friend who just learned how synonyms work.

"Wallet? No, it's a CASE for CURRENCY. I am truly captivated by your election to purchase me this endowment."

The Angel Solid Gold Juicer: $4,739
Best for: Anyone who dumped you in high school

It says "I'm rich now, but still juuuuuust trashy enough to own something with 'Angel' stamped across the side."

The St. Louis Tommy Glass: $495 EACH
Best for: Anyone with small children or butterfingers. 

Gift idea: Pre-smash it and give it to them in a box so they don't have to wait for the heartache of breaking their prized $500 pimp cup.

The Tina Frey Champagne Bucket: $300
Best for: Your fisherman dad

Because he still uses a cooler on his boat and that's friggin' embarrassing.

The Atsuyo et Akiko Wand: $44
Best for: Your Rambunctious 4-Year-Old

Because it makes getting jabbed in the eye with a wand while you're trying to nap on the couch just feel more luxurious.

The Artemare Longboard: $495
Best for: Your teen who doesn't mind getting beaten up at the skate park.

Because let's be honest. He's kiiiiiind of a douche and everyone knows it.

Hermes Myths and Constellations Trading Cards: $125
Best for: Your friend who would rather actually flush money down the toilet than donate any excess to charity. 

Because they're designer trading cards. For adults.

The Anito Ko Singular Safety Pin Earring: $2,584
Best for: Your 80s-obsessed brother.

I mean, we all agree those are the only people still wearing singular earrings, right?

The Charlotte Olympia Kinky Clutch: $1,295
Best for: Your Mom, who really got into 50 Shades of Grey this year. 

And told you all about it. And you didn't want to know.

The Preppi Earthquake Kit: $345
Best for: The posh doomsdayer. 

It's like, do people expect you to survive without Perrier?! It's an earthquake, not the end of CIVILIZED SOCIETY.

The Tom Sachs McDonalds Plate: $115
Best for: I don't even know. I'm sitting here and pinching the bridge of my nose in disappointment at the entire human race right now.

Art doesn't usually make me crave a Big Mac this bad.

The Row Rina Cape: $3,190
Best for: Yourself

You've finally done it: Reminded everyone how wealthy and special you are. Enjoy cozying up alone on Christmas in your Row Rina Cape because no one likes a show off.


Of course, there are many other confusing items on the list, like a $500 travel backgammon set (you know what else has travel backgammon? My phone) and some such, but I have a limited amount of time and patience to deal with this.

Just remember as you do your Christmas shopping this year: How much you spend is directly related to how much you care about a person. That's how it goes, right?