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So…what is the Monday Poll?

Excellent question! It isn’t, contrary to its name, an actual poll, like with little clicky buttons. It’s just a list of five more or less random questions I’ve been posting on this blog every Monday morning for the past quadrillion years (since 2007). I love reading your answers, and it helps me get my week off to a good start. ?

1. Matte or cream lipstick?

Cream — because my lips are at the *pinnacle* of their winter dryness right now.

2. You have $100 to spend on beauty products. Would you go to CVS, Ulta, Target or Sephora?

Sephora, and I’d get things I regularly use and adore, like two bottles of Kate Somerville Anti-Bac Clearing Lotion, which would be $84 before tax, so I’d have enough left over to grab a vanilla shake at In-n-Out afterwards, ha ha! Or, I’d get one bottle of Anti Bac ($42), a Clinique Pretty Easy Pen ($22), and two packages of Shiseido Facial Cotton ($10 each), for a grand total of $84.

Or maybe…just maybe…I’d throw caution to the wind and try some new things, like the Jose Maran Vibrancy Argan Oil Foundation ($45) and Vibrancy Concealer ($28) I’ve been dying to try.

3. Cowlicks?

SO MANY.

4. Weirdest or most oddly shaped thing you wrapped for the holidays this year?

Hmm… Well, yesterday I wrapped a big ol’ 48-ounce thermos, and I must say…I didn’t expect it to be quite as oddly shaped as it was. In fact, I actually ended up cheesing out and used a gift bag and tissue paper for it.

OH! Thank goodness for those Marshalls gift bags, man!

5. New or old?

New! I’m so ready for new.

It’s a hot pink unicorn kind of Christmas

Hi, friend! Happy Christmas Eve ?? day! Ya know…I actually feel the holiday buzz in the air, which is so great because, honestly, I usually just feel waves of stress on the 24th. I’m normally packing for two road trips to see family (we’re only driving to one place this year!), wrapping last-minute gifts (I finished yesterday!) and making food (also done yesterday, WOO HOO!). This year, it’s all done, and I actually feel excited. Almost relaxed. ?

One of the highlights for me this year has been wrapping gifts with this silly unicorn wrapping paper (at the top) I found at Michaels, which I initially got for Connor’s presents but have been using for everyone…even the dudes, ha ha!

How are things going over there? Are you traveling this year or staying local?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Question time! Here they are to copy/paste with your answers in a comment. Talk to you soon.

1. Matte or cream lipstick?
2. You have $100 to spend on beauty products. Would you go to CVS, Ulta, Target or Sephora?
3. Cowlicks?
4. Weirdest or most oddly shaped thing you wrapped for the holidays this year?
5. New or old?

So, you may think that you’ve seen OTT neighborhood Christmas light displays before, and perhaps you have…but let me tell ya, you haven’t experienced THE MOTHER OF ALL CHRISTMAS DISPLAYS until someone lets you into their house, which is covered from floor to ceiling (literally) with Christmas decorations.

The Rombeiro Christmas house in Novato is kinda famous around these parts, and it might be even more famous soon because they’re going to be on ABC’s The Great Christmas Light Fight show when it airs in 2019.

They’re a local family in town who’ve been putting on elaborate Christmas light and music shows in their front yard for the last 27 years, but here’s kicker: The show continues inside the actual house! Yup, you walk inside and tour each room, which is decorated with a different Christmas scene.

It’s like a mini Vegas light display on a neighborhood scale (word on the street is that their electricity bill tops $4,000 every December). Is the experience over-the-top? Oh, totally, but I think it’s kitschy, sweet and fun. This is obviously a family that LOVES Christmas.

My favorite part of the tour was the Angel room. So sweet and peaceful…

People from all over the Bay Area stream through the Rombeiro’s home all holiday season long, enjoying the holiday displays and good cheer. At the end of the tour, you meet the Rombeiros, who are just as nice as can be. They hang out in the kitchen and talk to everyone who walks through. They’ll even pose for pictures with you if you want. All of the kids on the tour also get a candy cane.

I can’t believe I’ve lived here almost 10 years and only found out about it this year. There’s talk that this might be the last year the Rombeiros are doing it, so if you’re anywhere near Novato, come check it out.

It’s free to visit, but there’s a donation box at the front if you feel so inclined. The house is at 34 Devonshire Drive in Novato, and they’re open in the evenings from 6-10 through January 6th.

On that note, let’s get crackin’ on this week’s reading.

• You know I’ll always be #TeamCindy when it comes to ’90s supermodels, but I’ve got nothing but love for the new NARS campaign starring the iconic Naomi Campbell.
• Here’s how to get Jason Momoa’s hair and beard from Aquaman. Truth be told, I didn’t read squat in this article and only looked at the pictures. 🙂
• Peer into the secret lives of street cats from around the world.
• RIP, Oribe Canales.
• South Korea’s beauty market is among the world’s top 10, which is why big beauty brands are piling into the region right now.
• Meet 16-year-old Nilanshi Patel Gujarat of India, otherwise known as The Guinness World Record holder for longest hair on a teenager.
• All about the rise of micellar water and how it became the Internet’s holy grail of lazy skincare.
• How does pH truly affect skin? Here’s a closer look.
• Speaking if skin, here’s your complete guide to at-home skin care tools.
• Ah, the age old question: How do new perfume brands persuade shoppers to click the “buy” button without knowing exactly what the fragrance will smell like? It looks like Phlur, a new niche brand, is doing something right because they sold 90,000 bottles to customers before the customers even smelled the scent.
• Fake reviews on Sephora? Check. Makeup lines photoshopping arms with swatches to make them appear darker? YUP. Not everything has been beautiful in beauty in 2018, and it’s been an especially crazy year for makeup social media accounts, brands and brand founders behaving badly.
• Newsflash: Nobody wants to smell like Britney Spears anymore, as celeb scents are waning in popularity.
• The ultimate guide to sports bras for big boobs.
• In case you were wondering, this is how viking cats differed from today’s modern kitties.

I was bumping this song in the car the other day when Connor yelled “NO DANCING IN THE CAR MOMMY!” Yes, it was hilarious.

In case you need some relaxing background Christmas music to listen this weekend…

What happens when the queen dies

OH, THIS WAS SO GOOD.

I’m off to finish the last of the gift wrapping, and I may or may not make some more cookies for my neighbors.

What are you up to this weekend?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

OK, I finally took the lemon cheesecake cookie recipe I was planning to bake for Connor’s teachers out for a spin, and you’re probably gonna laugh because I do things like “baking test runs,” but I do them because…I’m me! 🙂 I just needed/wanted to do a test batch before doing the actual batch to give to the teachers. (I know. And LOL!)

I’m actually glad I did it because I figured out a few things in the process. One, I bought the wrong flour and didn’t realize it until I started measuring out the ingredients.

DOH! I was supposed to buy self-rising cake flour, but I accidentally bought regular cake flour instead. But there’s a fix for that. (Hang tight. More on this in a minute.)

Two, I left the cookies in the oven a little too long…so I don’t think they were cheesecake-y enough. They were slightly overbaked.

Oops.

And three, tasty as they still were, they weren’t lemony enough. With the next batch, I’m going to kick up the amount of grated lemon peel a notch… I’m probably going to double it because I like my lemon cookies to be very lemony.

All in all, they turned out OK! Not a bad first pass. I got down with a few cookies today, and so did Connor. She was a very helpful baking assistant and did a great job of mixing the dough and rolling out the cookies into balls.

She’s so funny. Her hands would get sticky from the dough and she’d be like, “Mama, I need to wash my hands!” And I’d be like, “No, babylove. The best part about baking is getting dirty. Your hands should be sticky and messy.” I really just wanted her to get in there and play. I put a chair right next to me on the counter so we could talk to each other, and I also gave her a plastic bowl and a whisk so she could do some pretend baking alongside me.

I think one reason I like having her bake with me is because when I was growing up my mom was soooo not a baker, but on rare occasions, she’d make banana bread.

[Continue reading…]

I feel like I should have at least one Hallmark movie on this list, or maybe even a classic like It’s a Wonderful Life, but you know what? These are the three holiday movies I can watch over and over and over again, and I unapologetically love all of them.

1. The Sound of Music

At the top of the list is Sound of Music. I try to watch this one every year, but I don’t always get to because it’s so long — almost three hours (!) — but when I was a kid, every Christmas it was a staple holiday movie in our house. I realize that it’s not a traditional Christmas flick, but for me, because we always watched it over the holidays, it will always be the ultimate holiday movie. I love the music, love the scenery, love the acting and everything about it, and my dream is to someday go and visit all of the places where the movie was filmed. I especially want to go to the gazebo where Liesal jumps from bench to bench so I can leap across the benches, too (Side note: Here’s a story with a whole lot of fun facts about that scene).

2. Love Actually

Just watched this the other day for the umpteenth time, and it always amuses me to no end how the video camera guy is Sheriff Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead. This movie has everything! It’s got the multiple story lines, the music, the cheese, the happy moments, the tender moments, the laugh-out-loud moments… I might watch it one more time before Christmas, ha ha ha! Oh, and if you watch it, stick around for the credits because there’s a Kelly Clarkson song at the end called The Trouble With Love Is where she sounds exactly like a young Mariah.

3. Elf

Um…you know you’ve been writing about beauty for a while when you first type “elf” as “e.l.f.” (as in the beauty brand, ha!).

Man, Will Ferrell just cracks me up. I can’t even look at his face without laughing! This Christmas movie always puts me in a good mood, and I love how sweet and innocent it is.

How about you? What are your favorite holiday flicks?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. OK, OK, you know I couldn’t stop at just three. I can’t NOT have Little Women with Winona Ryder and Christian Bale on this list!