december in review

December was a slow month for me blogging wise... after Paris, trips to New Jersey, and getting ready for Christmas, then actually celebrating Christmas there was not a lot of time left over, so here I am in 2012 ready to rock and roll! First, a quick recap of late December...

Ross and I had a non-stop Christmas!! We started with my Dad's family on the afternoon of the 24th... celebrated Christmas morning with Ross' family... and finished off the festivities with my Mom's family for Christmas dinner. It was a lot of moving around, but we had a great holiday with lots of love, family, friends, and presents!!

I was really excited to give out gifts this year because I felt that all of the presents were really special and personal. Some of the best received included electric corkscrews (so fun and easy, plus a great conversation starter!), home-cooked meals frozen in individual portions, Michael Aram Christmas ornaments, and a Stuhrling skeleton watch with Roman numerals and alpha-numeric shown below!

I scored this on Gilt!

Also, here are a few things I got in December that I have on me today and I want to talk about...

Orange is my favorite color right now!! It's so bright and friendly ...a fantastic "pop" color. Which is why I was beyond ecstatic when I saw this Hermes Collier de Chien cuff in my stocking!! It's a great statement piece and I can't wait to wear it through all of the seasons. (Just thinking about it paired with white jeans, a white t-shirt, and gold sandals on my upcoming trip to Cabo makes me want to start packing!!)

I also got a Missoni knit scarf :) The instagram filter makes the colors pop a bit more, this scarf is more muted than shown above. It has a great palette with beige, heather gray, black, slate blue, rusty orange, and lavender so it will go with everything! I was glad to have this with me today... the wind whipping around on a 30 degree morning is not pleasant! And now that my hair is a good 4-inches shorter, my neck needed a little more coverage!

The hot pink lipgloss you see is something I'm really excited to talk about! This sample sized Jouer came from Birchbox, and is appropriately called "Birchbox Pink." For my birthday, my friends Steve and Genevieve got me a three-month subscription to this site! Each month I receive a box of samples of high-end beauty products. This let's me try out products before I decide to purchase them. But more to come on Birchbox later... (it deserves it's own post!).

And last but not least... here's an instagram of my new haircut! Truthfully, I'm not crazy about the two blunt layers. I'm more of a blended, long-layers kind of gal. But give this a month to six weeks and I know it'll grow in just right :)