these are a few of my favorite things {1}

two weeks from today... "twas the night before christmas..." let the countdown begin! from now on through christmas eve i'll be posting some holiday favorites of mine.

today has gotten off to a pretty great start. my roommate, kiki, woke up early and made a trip to the grocery store before the other {2} of us got out of bed. we awoke to the aroma of freshly made pancakes, eggs, coffee, and berries. yum! how fitting to sit in our breakfast room, eating breakfast, and listening to christmas music together. listening to pandora's christmas station made me realize how many versions of holiday classics are out there. most of them wonderful in their festive rendition. some of them not so great. but there is one song that i personally believe can never surpass {or even equal} the original... 

judy garland's "have yourself a merry little christmas". no one sings it like miss garland. her raspy yet feminine voice that evokes the emotion of savoring every little christmas moment like it will never happen quite like that again. i love her. i love this song. i love the film it's from. i love christmas, and this song sums it up beautifully.

oh christmas tree. part {1}

on sunday my roommates and i hitched a ride with my sister and brother-in-law to go get our christmas on and cut down a tree. our destination was a tree farm located in the beautiful san juan capistrano. unfortunately it wasn't the rural, charming little tree farm we had pictured... it was located on the side of the freeway. enough said. however, we did find the perfect douglas fir. it makes our little home seem so much cozier and festive! 

step {1} in the home makeover leading up to our christmas party i've entitled the holly jolly christmas bash- complete!

"When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money." -Susan Heller

has anyone been watching pan-am? my roommate kiki and I have been tuning in religiously. watching them jet set to a different country every week makes me want to give up my ambitions and become a flight attendant... i've been able to suppress this rash and romantic notion within me, however last weeks episode mentioned zagreb. i couldn't help it... my ears perked up, and that jet setting urge within became a little bit stronger. then i talked to karen. the woman with the fabulous red coat. i did it... i let the allure of life as a pan-am stewardess get the better of me.

don't worry. there has been no two-weeks-notice given. i did, however, purchase a round-trip ticket. it's official... i'll be spending thanksgiving in croatia!

now on my desktop lies the picture of this utterly chic parisian woman with a deliciously layered ensemble on that i discovered on the sartorialist almost 2 years ago...

i went to see if he had any stylish packing insight for me posted of croatian woman, but i was disappointed... but not for long! i did a quick little search and discovered a blog entirely devoted to zagreb street style... introducing styletonezagreb! here's some of my favorite inspirations for my trip... just enough to transfer some of that pan-am stewardess stylish glamour onto myself.

top photo is from flickr.