There are three things that I require. All are completely non-optional.

{ Something To Wear }

The first is a new pair of pajamas. I ask for new pjs ever year - oversized and cozy and old man-ish and zero sexy, please and thanks - and every year I try to manipulate the present-opening process so that I can get my hands on the box that I suspect holds said pajamas first. And then I change into them, and wander around in my brand-new pajamas all day long. It is wonderful.

{ Magic. (Follow on Instagram @ramshackleglam) }

 Hahahahahaha best desk accessory EVER.

 I was just hunting around in my archives in search of a cookies-for-Santa recipe, and went down a wormhole of completely bizarre posts that I put up back in the day. How To Make the Perfect Snowball, anyone? ...Anyone? ...No? Sigh.

This little bug hasn't gotten in a lot of air travel yet - we thought we'd hold off until she reached the iPad-as-sedative age - but all that's about to change! In the coming year, we have lots and lots of plans for family travel, including a trip to New York for my dad's 70th birthday, a trip to Ohio to see Kendrick's family, and hopefully a trip to somewhere involving a lobster roll and a lounge chair and silence.

I've partnered up with Alamo for the second year in a row, so I'm going to be blogging about all our family travel experiences - along with ideas for how to make the whole experience not just "doable," but awesome (really) - over here. If there’s anything in particular relating to family travel that you especially want to see – any questions, suggestions, or just stuff you enjoy and want more of – let me know??

P.S. If you missed my Alamo posts last year, some snippets:

Wren Yellow Gold and Rose Gold Opal Rings | Katie Diamond Opal and Diamond Ring

I recently discovered this jewelry brand through a friend who works with the company, and it's perfection. The goal of Iconery is to make fine jewelry unfussy, the kind of stuff you can wear everyday. My favorite pieces: the opal rings pictured here. Simple enough for stacking but spectacular enough to wear on their own, and priced in a way that allows you to actually buy one, rather than stare at them longingly through a store window.

When I was growing up, "picking out a Christmas tree" meant walking over to 43rd street with my mom and dad, looking at the selection of trees leaning against the side of the local Food Emporium, then lugging our pick the two blocks home and up into our fourth-floor apartment (and then retracing our footsteps with a broom to pick up the pine needles we'd strewn across the lobby and elevator floor). I've heard of people cutting down their own trees, but figured that was a pastime bestowed exclusively upon the residents of, like, rural Vermont. I also figured you probably had to be relatively adept with an axe in order to actually do this.

Not so, as it turns out. Apparently going to cut down your own Christmas tree is a pretty normal thing to do in parts of the world that aren't New York City.

Huh!