Let it (paper cut out) snow

Speaking of holiday windows (as I did last week), I was down on Greenwich Avenue recently and I came across this fab window in the Free People store:



Ignore the fact that it's definitely not the best photo I've taken (hey, I was on my way to a meeting in a cafe I couldn't find, but I ran the risk of being late to snap this photo. As I tell my kids, you get what you get and you don't get upset). Let's instead focus on the awesome snowflakes with the pop of fluorescent orange: love. I'm a sucker for paper snowflakes anyway, and these just made my heart skip a little.

I've never been inside the store, but judging from the window, it looks small. But way to make use of the space you have (notice that no other store's window stopped me in my tracks).

Bergdorfs, blogs, and beautiful windows

OK, first: Bergdorf's has a blog?? Can we talk about how I did NOT know this? I suspect Mattio is behind my lack of knowledge in the Bergdorf's blog department.

Second: Hello. Not only do they have a blog, but could I just love the type treatment a little more? I think not. Gorgeous.

Third (the point of this post):Holiday windows are coming! Holiday windows are coming!

When I was a child, every year in December my family would make a pilgrimage to New York City to do the holiday tourist thing: the tree at Rockefeller Center, the Christmas Show at Radio City, and the windows. Oh, the windows! From Saks to Lord & Taylor to Bloomies, we did it year after (freezing cold) year.

So, being that we are approaching that time of year, Bergdorf's blog has let us know that the curtains are up, and the visual team is hard at work on their always-spectacular windows. They've got some photos of year's past, and are planning to release a limited edition Windows at Bergdorf Goodman book (for--gulp--$500).



While I love the idea of a Bergdorf's Windows book, I'm all for a $20 train ticket in my warmest down parka to see the real thing, thankyouverymuch.

Un-Labor Day

This weekend, like the rest of the country, Mattio and I celebrated working by taking time off. It was wonderful.

Friday night we celebrated by going out to dinner (and cocktails) with friends we don't see nearly as often as I would like. Saturday night brought dinner (and more cocktails!) with friends that I'm glad we get to see as often as we do. Sunday afternoon brought an last-minute dinner invitation from another set of friends. And yes, there were cocktails.

Because both we both work from home, it's really, really hard to take time off--if only because the computer is always there. We live in a digital society where 9-5--in our case--isn't the norm. We put in our daily hours, but more often than not, after the kids are in bed, there's another couple of hours spent working. And very rarely does a weekend go by without us putting in a little more time at "the office." It doesn't really interrupt our lives too much (Saturday nights--remember, we have kids--and Sunday mornings are great times to knock out a few things)--but it's there, the work on the weekends.

We're both very fortunate in that we enjoy what we do for a living, so working "after hours" doesn't really bring too many complaints. But sometimes, you need to step away. Sometimes, you have to take the weekend off. Sometimes, you have to un-labor.

And that's just what we did this weekend. And it felt good.

Holiday cheer

I love this time of year--I love buying and giving gifts, love sending out cards, love baking cookies. I love the lights on our tree--actually, I really, really love our tree this year. I love the fact that it's completely and totally eclectic--I think the old school lights really do it for me.

I think my most favorite thing over the holiday season is giving gifts, though. I love shopping for other people, and I love the really good feeling I get when I make someone else happy.

Which is why, when this arrived in my inbox this morning, courtesy of the always awesome Debbie Fay, I couldn't ignore it. I love stories like this:

A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
(listen to Diaz tell his story here)

Morning Edition, March 28, 2008 · Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.

But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.

He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'"

Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.

"You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help," Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.

"The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi," Diaz says. "The kid was like, 'You know everybody here. Do you own this place?'"

"No, I just eat here a lot," Diaz says he told the teen. "He says, 'But you're even nice to the dishwasher.'"

Diaz replied, "Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?"

"Yea, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way," the teen said.

Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. "He just had almost a sad face," Diaz says.

The teen couldn't answer Diaz - or he didn't want to.

When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, "Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you."

The teen "didn't even think about it" and returned the wallet, Diaz says. "I gave him $20 ... I figure maybe it'll help him. I don't know."

Diaz says he asked for something in return - the teen's knife - "and he gave it to me."

Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, "You're the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch."

"I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."

Produced for Morning Edition by Michael Garofalo.

Christmas countdown

My stockings are not yet hung. My mother in law knit (crocheted? I don't know the difference--but either way they are hand made and I love them) stockings for all of us; and Eleanor's is still up at her house. So one part all of our stockings are not here, one part sheer laziness, I have not hung the stockings yet.

Cookies? Done. Baked, plated, and all but delivered. I even packaged some up for Ashlee's friends at school tomorrow.

Presents are bought and wrapped. The big snowstorm on Friday made me a bit nervous about when we would wrap the kid's gifts--we had plans to do it Friday AM, before the kids got the day off--but we got it done Friday night and this morning. One of my girlfriends even stopped by today with gifts for my kids, which meant that I got to give her the gifts for her kids, so technically you could say that I'm even handing gifts out.

In my errands today, I got tights for the girls, shoes for the girls, and took care of any other Christmas Day outfit finagling that needed to get done.

Cards: personal cards got mailed out weeks ago. Business cards are sitting in a box at my feet. Hmmmm, I should probably do those...

The only other things I have left to do are bake some pies, and make a salad and antipasta for Christmas Day. Oh, and work. Usually around the holidays things tend to slow down for me. Not so much, this year (although, with the current economy, that's just fine by me!).