Photos by Drew
Dress: Steven Alan Lydia Dress (sample sale)
Bag: Etsy
Boots: Madewell Suede Sandstorm Boots
There are officially two more weeks until Christmas, and I don’t think I’ve been as excited about it since I was a little kid. I have a feeling time is going to crawl and crawl for the next week or so . . . There are still things to do here and work to get done, and all I want to do is pack up the car and go see my family in Tennessee . . .
It’s nice here, though. We have our tree up and decorated, after going out to Powder Springs to a tree farm. I hadn’t been to a tree farm since I was a kid and I really wanted to see what a Georgia one would be like. In Illinois we used to go to one not too far from our house and out in the country . . . I remember lots of snow and it being so cold that we would all huddle in a big barn around a fire, and there was always hot chocolate and candy canes. The farm we went to this time was different–it was in someone’s back yard, for one thing, and even thought it was pretty it did seem strange to be getting a Christmas tree when it was 60 degrees outside.
I won’t complain one bit about 60 degree Decembers, though. It’s been perfect for running, which I did not do once this weekend even though it was perfectly nice out. I spent way too much time being lazy, taking naps and reading a biography on Katherine Anne Porter. Not one bit productive, and it’s not making the holidays come any faster . . .
PS–Happy birthday to my brother-in-law, Danny the Antagonizer (formerly known as Super Cute, Super Style Guy on Flickr).
I’m almost positive that I wrote up a post about my favorite Christmas movies on my old blog, but since I deleted the whole thing over the summer (R.I.P.) I may as well pretend it never existed and give it another try . . .
Christmas in Connecticut: There are two Barbara Stanwyck movies on this list because I’m a huge Stanwyck fan. I love her toughness and her no-nonsense personality and the way she can liven up a genre that tends to go heavy on sentimentality. She’s all eye rolls and smirks in this movie as a street-smart magazine columnist pretending to be the perfect ’40s housewife in order to trick her publisher boss. Of course she doesn’t trick anyone, but it’s fun to watch her try, and the house she takes over for her little masquerade is maybe my favorite Christmas film house ever.
I’ll Be Seeing You: I love Ginger Rogers for a lot of the same reasons that I love Barbara Stanwyck. She’s as glamorous as any other star from the ’30s or ’40s, but she always has a little edge to her, which is maybe why she was so good at playing women in trouble with the law. In this film she stars as a convict on leave for Christmas, and another favorite of mine, Joseph Cotten, plays a shell-shocked man returning from the war. Watching them meet and fall in love is sweet and real and touching, and while Christmas just plays a very small part in the movie it’s still interesting to see how simultaneously wholesome and glamorous holidays in the ’40s were. (Well, in films at least)
Remember the Night: This is the third time I’ve written about this movie on my blog. I saw it for the first time just two years ago, but I’m pretty sure it’s my favorite Christmas movie, if only because it’s still new to me. It also doesn’t hurt that it stars Barbara Stanwyck, this time as a shoplifter (I guess I really like movies about law-breaking women) who ends up spending Christmas with the man who is prosecuting her in court. They both go to Indiana and spend an old-fashioned Christmas, and Barbara even bakes (or tries to).
It’s A Wonderful Life: This is the one I’ve been watching every year for as long as I can remember, and it’s easy to take it for granted. It was probably the first black and white film I ever saw (not counting the first half of The Wizard of Oz), and even though I didn’t always love old movies I did always love this one. It’s the most sentimental out of my whole list, and some scenes are so overly-sweet that you can understand why some people of the time came up with the term “Capra-corn” to describe Frank Capra’s films. Can this movie get corny? Yes. But it’s also touching and good, and if there’s any holiday for watching sentimental films it’s Christmas.
So all I can really think about lately is Christmas and how I wish we could just fast-forward to the 24th. We’re spending the holidays with my family in Tennessee, and all I want to do is work on getting Christmas presents bought and plan out what kinds of things I’ll be baking this year. Not very productive for blogging, I know. So now that vacation recaps are done I figured I might as well bring on the onslaught of holiday posts.
Does it feel strange to go from writing about desert hikes and sun-sickness to velvet dresses and Christmas trees? A little. It’s been pretty warm here lately, but today it’s so cold that there’s even a chance of snow, which is a big deal for Atlanta. I’m not a fan of snow (too many midwestern winters) but don’t mind it around Christmastime. Other things that work around Christmas: the color red (I used to love it, but now will only wear it in December) and velvet. I’m especially in love with the velvet dresses that keep popping up in holiday lookbooks like Anna Allen’s and Blooming Leopold’s. And those two velvet dresses from Bona Drag are just the kinds I usually fall for around this time: sleeveless and impractical, but so pretty that I’ll most likely end up going cold rather than throwing on a cardigan to cover it up.
Photos: 1., 2: Anna Allen Holiday 2011 Lookbook; 3: Rachel Antonoff Leith Dress and TBA Velvet Kate Dress; 4: Blooming Leopold Holiday Lookbook.
Photos by Drew
Dresses: Duskin, Madewell
Sandals: Swedish Hasbeens
Sunglasses: Karen Walker
Bag: Ebay
I promise that this will be the last of everything wedding/honeymoon related on this blog. After this post be prepared for photos of Georgia in winter, tights and boots, and lots of complaints about the cold . . .
We went to Palm Springs again because we had gone there last year and really fell in love with its desert weirdness and with the hot temperatures and with the Ace Hotel, an old Howard Johnson-turned-modern swim resort. It’s probably one of the most relaxing places I’ve ever stayed, which isn’t all that surprising–when it’s over 100 degrees out there’s really not too much you can do besides take naps inside air-conditioned rooms or sit outside in the pool with a drink in hand.
The heat in Palm Springs is a little disorienting, at least to people used to living in the humid south. Last year when we went I ended up getting sick after spending too much time out in the sun and it messed up our plans to visit Joshua Tree State Park. This time around I was prepared and drank water around the clock. But when we were at Target getting things for our trip to Joshua Tree Drew started feeling light-headed and sick, and had to sit the rest of the day out. So we ate room service, and then I walked around the town, looking for museums and the homes of old Hollywood stars but not really finding anything besides a bunch of banks and liquor stores. To be fair, I didn’t really walk that far.
By nighttime Drew was feeling better, so we decided to wake up early the next morning to see Joshua Tree. Our plane was leaving at noon, so we didn’t have much time. We woke up before the sun rose, got some coffee, and headed through the mountains to the park. The area around it was different than I thought it would be–lots of strip malls and fast food restaurants where I thought it would be completely desolate. But when we got on the long road to the park the landscape started to change, and soon rock formations started appearing and joshua trees were everywhere. We saw the sun rise over the desert and mainly just drove around the park. We didn’t have time for any long hikes, but we did get to walk around the Barker Dam trail that my sister Ashley had taken amazing photos of when she went there in September. I wore heels because I’m foolish and because the trail was only a mile long (nothing), but didn’t really account for all the sharp sand I’d have to keep dumping out of my sandals. Oh well. It was beautiful to walk around, even if the lake the trail is famous for had dried up. We did get to see the Native American petroglyphs, which I read were painted over in the ’60s by Disney so they would stand out more for a movie they were filming there. I wasn’t brave enough to climb the rock to see them up close, or maybe I was just tired and knew I’d probably break my other arm if I tried.
After that we had to turn around so we could go back and get our things packed and drop off our car at the airport. It had been a week since we had left, and I was missing the southern air and my dog.
