With less than 20 days left until Christmas I'm thinking it's about time I share some holiday stuff here if I'm going to share any at all this year! As it happens, I've purchased a few festive things to wear this month, so I'm thinking I can't wait much longer to share them in case anyone else is interested in getting them in time for a holiday event. So for today's Friday Favorites I'm starting with some favorite festive purchases! And later in the post, I have a few favorite gift ideas I've received and really loved, so stick around to the end for those!
Festive Try-On Session:
'Tis the season for adding some red and green to your wardrobe if you don't already have any! I don't have a lot of pieces in either of those colors, but I have a couple of events coming up where I think a slightly festive outfit or detail would be fun, so I found a few pieces to try.
Blanket Scarf:
I thought a scarf would be a fun holiday accessory since I can add it to a normal/neutral outfit and easily give it a slight holiday vibe. I just loved the print on this one the best of all the options I browsed, so I sale stalked it and snagged it on Black Friday. Now that I have it in my hands, I can tell you it's very soft and cozy, so I do like that about it. My only concern is that it's quite large. It feels a little overwhelming on me. I know some people cut their blanket scarves, but I don't know if that would work well with this one. It would definitely make it thinner, but it would still be really long. I'll share the front view of this below so you can let me know what you think of the sizing. It hardly seems worth the trouble to return since it was such a good deal and it is really cute and comfy, so I want to make it work!
Red Sweater:

Despite the fact that I don't wear a lot of red, I do really like the color! I'm just picky about the exact shade of red. This type of richer, darker red is what I prefer and it seems to be harder to find! I'm just not comfortable in brighter, fire engine red shades. I thought this would be a fun basic option to wear on its own or layer for the holidays and Valentine's Day if I'm thinking ahead. This sweater is true to size but on the more fitted side. It's also thin - it doesn't provide any warmth beyond a standard t-shirt or blouse. I'm okay with that because a) I wanted it as a layering piece, and b) I live in a warm climate. But if you want a warm cozy sweater this won't do. This is by Lark & Ro on Amazon, and I haven't had great luck with their sweaters in the past other than their cashmere. I almost didn't order this except for the fact that the shade of red was exactly what I wanted and I couldn't find it in any other decent quality line on Amazon! But I'm glad I gave this line another chance. This is a solid piece for the $29 price. It also comes in a bunch of other colors, including a brighter red if that's your thing. I'm wearing XS here, and at first I was wishing I had gotten a Small, but it did stretch a bit with wear so I think this will be just fine. Go with your normal size unless you definitely want it looser/more relaxed.
Green Sweater Dress:
Of all three pieces I'm sharing today, I'm most impressed with this dress! And it's currently only $22! This is also by Lark & Ro, and to be honest I wish the red sweater above were made from this same material - this dress is just a bit thicker, sturdier and also softer! It's comfortable and feels cozy but still looks polished. I'm planning to wear this to an upcoming holiday concert, but it could easily work as office wear if needed. This comes in black and red as well, and runs true to size. I need to order a slip to go with this though...it was definitely sticking to my tights. And speaking of tights, ages ago
Caryl recommended fleece-lined tights for winter. This is my first time wearing them and I'm a fan! They're cozy and really helped keep my legs warmer than regular tights.
Front View:
Here's the front view of these three pieces for another look at the length and fit.
Nails of the Week:
I just switched my nails to one of my favorite winter nail colors - CND Dark Lava. It's a blackened plum with some slight shimmer. For some reason I find dark colors a little more wearable when they have some shimmer vs. a dark matte color. Or maybe I just like looking at them when they reflect the light...or maybe both reasons! Haha!
Holiday Nails:
Since we're on the subject of festive favorites, my current favorite Holiday Nail Color is CND Crimson Sash. I'll probably switch to this color closer to mid-December since it has just a bit more red it in!
Favorite Gifts I've Received:
I don't consider myself a very creative person in the gifting department (gift cards FTW!), but I do have some friends and family members who have a knack for that sort of thing. Over the years they'e given me some gifts I didn't know I needed...but ended up loving! I think I'm a difficult person to shop for since I truly already have everything I need, so I'm always impressed when people can surprise me! If you're still doing some holiday shopping and wouldn't mind a few more gift ideas, here are some that were winners for me!
ONE: Beauty Salon Gift Card - Last year a few of my blogger friends did some sneaky research to find out my favorite local beauty salon and they got me a gift certificate there. It was so nice to get my hair done for "free" a few times! I was really trying to stick to non-gift card gifts for this list, but I loved the practicality of this gift, plus since I knew they had put effort into finding out the most useful place for me, it still felt like a very personal gift and not "just" a gift card at all.
TWO: The Game of Things - I had never heard of this game until a friend gifted it to me as a hostess gift a few years back. Now we play it at just about every get together we host! It's very easy to play, and how clean or Adult the game is depends 100% on your participants and their answers. I love that it can be totally family-friendly or more risqué for the right crowd. But any way we play it, we always end up laughing and having a great time.
THREE: L'Occitane Shower Oil - I had seen this stuff all over the blogosphere for years, but no way on earth could anyone convince me that a shower oil was worth this price tag. Well, once my blogger friends gifted me a bottle for my birthday, I was hooked! Now it's all I use in the shower. This makes a great gift, especially in the winter when a lot of us are battling dry skin.
FOUR: J Crew Necklace - If you've followed my blog for the last couple of years, you have seen me wear the segments of this necklace no less than a hundred times - and I'm wearing it in two of the outfits above!
Rachelle gifted it to me a few years back and I had no idea I was missing such a staple piece in my jewelry wardrobe! This comes as a layered necklace, but I separated mine into two necklaces because I found the separate segments easier to style with the necklines of my existing tops. So it was like getting two necklaces in one gift. I did adjust the length a bit on each segment (adding an extender to the longer one and removing links from the shorter one), to get the lengths just right, so you may or may not need to do the same depending on your preference, but I'm used to doing that with a lot of my necklaces since I'm picky about the length, so it was no problem for me. I never think to shop for jewelry at J. Crew so this gift was such a pleasant surprise, and the quality has really stood the test of time.
FIVE: Label Maker - This gift is the epitome of "things I didn't know I needed." My best friend from college gave this to me probably 20 years ago, and it still comes in handy pretty often! I have containers all around the house with labels on them, and I can't tell you how many times someone has yelled, "Mom! where are the Markers??" And I yell back, "In the cupboard above the microwave in the container that says Markers!" Works every time! Ha! My kids also have labels on their school folders so they can easily tell which subject is in which folder. Sure, you can use a piece of tape and a marker to label things, but this is fun and convenient to use once you have it.
Since this is likely my one and only Gift-related post of the year, I'll quickly recap some of my past gift posts for you. The links are most certainly outdated, but there are still some useful ideas in my humble opinion!
Sentimental Gift Ideas: Self explanatory, but these are gifts I've given many times!
Gift Ideas for Older Boys: I polled a group of my boy-mom friends and family members and they delivered a lot of gift ideas for older boys (roughly eight and up).
Gift Ideas for Men: This could also be called "Stuff My Husband likes and the man in your life might like it too!"
And here's one more fun idea I just purchased! I just bought this
scratch off map on Etsy for one of my kids, and I'm 99.9% sure he doesn't read here so hopefully this will remain a surprise!
One of my kids really want to travel more, so I thought this might be a fun visual for him to keep track of where we go. Hopefully it doesn't backfire and make him upset that we haven't scratched off more places! My kids always give me a wishlist but I always like to have one or two little surprises for them as well and this was the best/only idea I had!
And there you have it! A few of my Festive Favorite things for Friday! As always I'm joining up with
Erika,
Andrea, and
Narci today, and I'll see you back here on Monday!