Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of my lovely readers! I'm writing this post on Christmas Eve. Every Christmas Eve my family goes to Mass at 4, eats homemade lasagna, and then the rest of the night is filled with relaxing, opening one gift, and preparing the cookies for Santa and the turkey stuffing for tomorrow. It's our first christmas in our new home. I'm super excited to wake up to Christmas Day in a new home and to have all of the family over to celebrate!

Now, for my outfit.

Watch my video on this.

However my dress, socks, and tights are from Forever 21. My shoes are from TJ Maxx. My necklace is from a boutique in Hawaii. 

Now for my makeup. I used a Revlon bb cream, BH Cosmetics eyeliner, Benefit eyeshadow, Bare Essentuals lipstick, and Physicians Formula concealer. My eyeshadow and blush are from Studio Gear Cosmetics. If you're interested in buying their Holiday Palette or any other products from http://studiogearcosmetics.com/, use my discount code "DOLLAR13" for an extra 10% off!

Now for the yummiest part of the day, the fooood! First, I made white chocolate peppermint popcorn. The only "clean" part of this was that I used "Skinny Pop."

here's where I got the recipe.

The second sweet treat I successfully made was crinkle cookies. I always wondered how Panera got their red velvet ones to look just like that. Now I do! (Psst, the secret is powdered sugar.) They came out absolutely lovely. Check out the recipe here!

I also roasted up some green beans and sweet potatoes with goat cheese!

Lastly, I'll share a bit of what I got. I got a crosley record player, a wireless printer, an "up" activity tracker, a jacket, a cardigan, some trail mix, a pilates DVD and a pilates ball, and a Cape Cod alex and ani bracelet. I'm so incredibly happy and blessed!

Aaaannd one last note: post-christmas shopping! I scored some amazing deals. I've never been so content with my purchases and how I budgeted my money. I suggest going in with a plan, know what you want and how much you want to spend on it. That's just what I did at lush and I got the price I wanted. I'd like to highlight the amazing fringe and floral cardigan I scored at Forever 21. It was on sale for $20.99! It seems like velvet and fringe and going to be huge trends coming up. Here's a preview - however watch out for a huge haul of this on my youtube coming up!
However we all know that besides the gift of giving and getting, Christmas is about being renewed. Whether your are religious or not, take this time of year to renew yourself in your heart and your head. Reflect on the past year, take a deep breath, and think about how you can better yourself in 2014. A gift is not all about how much you spent on it, but whether it came from your heart to their heart. Have a great day, holiday season, and year everyone!