For Christmas I received a lot of nice gifts, most of all from my twin sister Diana (although to be fair, we have an unspoken agreement to always spoil each other). Her kindness, and the kindness of my friends and family, never ceases to amaze me. Here are the gifts I received for Christmas 2017:
DIANA
Diana’s great at thinking of little gifts that will surprise me, case in point this quite literal “Little Box of Emoji.” It includes pins, patches, stickers, and magnets, but I’m pretty sure she bought it for the stickers, which I have a slight obsession with.
How adorable is this little Pusheen? It’s an ornament that came in the cutest little surprise box with a mystery Pusheen inside. Apparently, there is a Pusheen Blind Box Series on Amazon and I received one of eight randomized 3” collectible plush ornaments.
[GoT sword]
I asked for several Colourpop liquid lipsticks for Christmas and Diana generously complied by getting me all 7! But before you cry tears for her wallet, get this — each was only $4.20! The holiday sales were sweet this year. Stay tuned for a review!
She also got me a Super Shock blush in the shade Aphrodisiac, a beautiful neutral mauve.
Finally on the makeup front, she also gifted me this gorgeous set of liquid lipsticks I had on my Pinterest board by Dose of Colors. This set of three lippies is so beautiful and I love the presentation and packaging it comes in. I’ll also post a review on these once I’ve given them a try.
These Piña studs from Baublebar are so cute! They’re the perfect fun way to dress up a classy outfit but still look polished and stylized, a great conversation piece.
Diana also picked up a few clothing items for me. One of them are these patterned flannel sleep shorts from Gilly Hicks. I don’t have any cute sleep shorts so I’m so happy to have a pair for when summer rolls around.
Also taken directly from my Pinterest board, Diana purchased two super cute sweatshirts for me from Hollister! I’m never sure if I’m an XS or a S, but in this cut I would have preferred an XS for both (like the gray one below).
The pink one is a size S but I don’t think it looks bad. It’s a bit more oversized in the length of the arms and the shirt overall.
Next up, she purchased an Aerie sweatshirt for me but I decided I could exchange it for something I liked better, so I found these suuuper cute sleep short/brief type things on sale for $6 each, so I picked up four of them. Here’s a peek at just one of the pairs I picked up. I think they’re meant to be like skivvies.
This is another direct request I made from my Pinterest board. I saw this slinky bodycon dress on AKIRA and thought, I have to have it. She ordered it for me and I love it! I can’t wait to find the right occasion to wear it to — it might be my New Year’s Eve outfit for the end of 2018.
While she was on Akira she also got me this fit and flare skirt I wanted. I’m a little underwhelmed by it because it’s very flat at the top and flares out somewhere around the middle, and I had wanted it to flare out right from the waist. Still, I’ll get a lot of wear out of this in the spring and summer.
Finally, she surprised me with this cozy fleece/shearling sweater from Abercrombie! It’s so cozy (I forgot to include it in the photo shoot where I tried on the rest of the clothing). Initially, it was a bit big, so we decided to exchange it for an X-Small and it fits much better now.
You can check out what I Diana in my Gifts I Gave: This Christmas 2017 blog post – let me know who outdid who.
MOM AND DAD
Now that we’re adults, my parents can’t guess what we want so well anymore, so we usually ask them for a couple of gifts. My main gift was my 2018 Erin Condren LifePlanner and some accessories. Since the whole site was 30% off, I also added a Stylish Storage Box to hold all my stickers, a sticker book, and some sticker sheets.
My parents also gave me my favorite tin of cookies (which they buy every year because I love them so much). This year I received a knock-off version, but they didn’t know any better. This tin by Lambertz is an imitation of the cookies they usually get me (I wish I knew the brand), but look different and taste slightly different.
You may be wondering what this is. This is a “Retainer Jar” my dad made so that I have my own designated device to use instead of one of our house cups when I clean my retainers with Polident. I’ve been meaning to buy my own cup for it so the fact that he came up with a solution of his own was really cute to me.
ERICA
My coworker Erica gifted me a mood-changing nail polish, a Clinique skincare mini, and a “Treat Jar” because my previous candy jar at work shattered. Unfortunately, just minutes after receiving it, it fell on the couch and actually cracked in a few places.
This was the jar before it cracked.
Pearl & Esther
I mentioned in my Gifts I Gave This Christmas 2017 post that I treated the girls in the office to body lotion and then had them choose from a grab-bag of lip glosses, lipstick, nail polish, mini brushes, etc. Two of my coworkers then pooled together to give me this beautiful shower/lotion set. It really touched my heart.
SHAO
If you read my Gifts I Gave This Christmas 2017 blog post, you’ll know that my sister and I gave my coworker Shao a couple of last-minute gifts. He surprised me by pulling a present out of his drawer for me a couple of weeks later! He got me this actually AMAZING makeup brush set!
It’s by a brand called SHANY, and it comes with this great carrying case (subtle enough to use for other things), and seven amazing high-quality makeup brushes with beautiful detailing. They’re cruelty-free and I’m so blown away by this gift from a GUY of all people! Shao just raised the bar.
nina
My friend Nina got me this cute little nail polish set by innisfree. It’s a set of two deep nail polishes, a little pot of glitter, and a sticker sheet of cute winter-y nail stickers (snowmen, snowflakes, etc.).
JUDY
My friend Judy gave me two very nice gifts, the first being a holiday ornament from Alex and Ani! I’ve never purchased anything from them so it was really nice and unexpected of her to get me my first Alex and Ani piece.
She also got me this really cute Sephora palette called Sephora Wonderful Stars. The packaging is beautiful and inside are a mixture of three blush/highlighters and nine neutral eyeshadows. Love it! I can’t wait to try it out and put a look together solely using the palette.
ANDREA
My coworker Andrea also got me and my sister Fordham baseball caps! She works at the Fordham bookstore part-time, which is where Diana and I both attended college. So cool of her to think to get us hats of our Alma Mater.
Aunt Vicky
My Aunt Vicky gave me and my cousin travel toiletry pouches that I’m sure will prove to be very useful at some point in the future.
Aunt Carroll
My Aunt Carroll gave me this Kevyn Aucoin product that I was hoping would be a highlighter. It’s called “The Pure Powder Glow” and it’s a super shockingly pink blush. I don’t know how much use I’m going to get out of this, but I appreciate it all the same.
She also got me this purse from Alice and Olivia. It’s a pretty plain felt black bag with a gold/black chain, but if my sources are right, this bag costs almost $400! My camera’s been doing poorly with picking up black on camera, so just an FYI that’s why the quality is so shitty.
NICK
I asked Nick if he could buy me this $48 Jouer Skinny Dip Trio that includes their Skinny Dip Collection Ultra Foil Shimmer Shadows, Skinny Dip Collection Powder Highlighter in SkinnyDip, and Lip Topper in Skinny Dip.
Aside from that, I asked for a couple of jewelry pieces, just because we were walking around and I saw a few Black Friday steals I really liked. The first is this delicate pendant necklace from a shop called Six at my local mall (Queens Center).
While perusing the little vendor shops at Union Square, we stumbled upon Brooklyn Charms, the most amazing place to build your own unique charm pieces and we built a rosegold chain with a rose gold NY state, a gold CA state, and a rosegold heart.
The final necklace was a bit disappointing. We were at Brooklyn Marketplace Co and I’m really bad at walking away and not purchasing something whenever a vendor is super attentive to me, so at the last minute I picked out this necklace without trying it on first. It looks so beautiful on its own but once it’s on your neck it just looks tangled no matter how much you try to separate the strands.
I knew he’d have a few tricks up his sleeve, and sure enough he got me so many more gifts than I ever expected. He disguised these gifts from Anthropologie in a boring tech box under the guise of getting me a “practical gift” to throw me off the trail. Inside lay treasure.
How cute is this ‘This And That’ peachy/gold pouch? It’s so cute and the most delightful news of all is that I actually had it on my private Pinterest wishlist board and he had no idea. Inside it, he tucked a bracelet and two necklaces in it. I returned one necklace, but here is the bracelet and the necklace.
Seem a bit plain to you? That’s because they’re meant for charms! I’m all about Anthropologie’s Personalization Shop, and I totally bought into the hype of creating your own original one-of-a-kind piece. To go along with the necklaces/bracelets, he bought 8 charms.
CHRISTINA
Finally, my cousin Christina gifted me three tops I wanted from Abercrombie. I really liked how they looked online and I’m happy at how they look in real life. They’re cute casual tops and very easy to throw on.
I couldn’t resist wearing my new Topshop hat with this top because they just work so well together! I’m so fashioning an outfit like this in the spring.
That concludes my what I got for Christmas! Thanks for stopping by, and let me know in the comments — what did you think?