Lifestyle

Lifestyle

The Ramshackle Glam BFF Holiday Gift Guide

When I first started blogging - during the Wild West years - it was a time when bloggers were virtually showered with swag. Everything from champagne to deodorant arrived on my doorstep - unsolicited - on the regular, and every time my fellow blogger friends and I attended an "event", we were sent off with bags overflowing with moisturizers and chocolates and sunglasses and what have you. See, brands were still trying to figure out how to harness this newfangled thing called "social media," and the initial plan was apparently to throw their stuff at the wall and see what stuck. In other words, for the relatively low cost of wholesale product, they hoped that they'd get what amounted to free coverage (at least relative to what they'd pay for traditional media).

This was obviously REALLY fun in the beginning. Overwhelming, even. But honestly? Over time, another lip gloss in your mailbox just stops being exciting, and starts being just another thing you don't need. What this meant: I became the actual best gift-giver on Planet Earth, sifting through my stash for the just-right gifts for everyone in my life - gifts, suffice it to say, that I would never, ever have been able to afford all on my lonesome.

Now, the industry shifted several years ago towards a more traditional pay-for-play approach - as did my personal business model, wherein I only accept product from clients I'm contracted to work with or otherwise intend to review for the site - but the fact that I love giving my friends gifts: That stayed. There's just nothing like it.

Lifestyle

How To Survive Holiday Travel With Children

How to make the holidays more stressful? Just add long car rides, cross-country flights, and a few underslept kids! Our sleep expert Mahaley tells us how to navigate the mess with your sanity (relatively) intact.

By the time my daughter was two, we had taken 21 flights with her. (Yes, you read that right.) With the holidays in full swing, I get asked how to survive all the travel and festivities with a young child - so here are my best tips and strategies: 

1. When possible, give your child their own sleeping space. My husband and I will often opt for a more affordable hotel or an Airbnb so that we can get a suite or a two-bedroom apartment when we travel. Many kids do better with a little privacy (and quiet).

2. Make the sleep environment as familiar as possible. Whatever your child typically sleeps with, bring it. Make the room as dark and quiet as possible, and pack your white noise machine. Having a solid bedtime routine also simplifies traveling, because you'll be able to use established cues to signal to your child that it’s time to sleep even though they're not in their typical environment.

Lifestyle

The Ramshackle Glam Gift Guide For Kids (That Parents Won’t Hate)

I can be very Grinchy when it comes to my kids' toys. It's one of those "Well, when I was a kid..." things - because when I was a kid, you know what I had? A cabinet for my toys, and exactly the number of toys that could fit into that cabinet. Maybe it was the fact that we lived in a small apartment or maybe my parents were just Grinchy, too, but I'm totally of the school of thought that when it comes to toys, less is more. You spend more time with each one; you get more creative with how you play; you create actual relationships between yourself and your possessions, a la the Velveteen Rabbit (sob).

Which means that the overflow of stuff that my kids get every Christmas, what with the multiple Christmases celebrated at multiple locations throughout the country with multiple pockets of relatives makes me, like I said...

Grinchy.

Lifestyle

This Holiday Season, Make Space For Solitude

Tarot contributor Jessica explains why the holiday season is the perfect time to go deep - even to the places that you fear the most.

If your life is anything like mine, Halloween kicks off a couple of months of festive decorating and nonstop socializing. It makes sense that we want to gather with friends and family to beat back the long, cold nights with hot toddies and tinsel, but I'd like to encourage you to carve out some time and space for quiet solitude. Since I’m a bit of an introvert, this is just a necessary part of self-care for me.

There’s more to my suggestion than that, though. Winter is the perfect time to cultivate—or rekindle, or rehabilitate—a relationship with darkness and silence. 

Let The High Priestess be your guide. The third card in the Major Arcana, The High Priestess is unafraid to travel wherever her search for knowledge takes her. She trusts her own inner wisdom, and it’s through knowing herself that she gets to know the universe.