Christmas Wish List: Item #4

Size matters, you know. Particularly when we are talking women's accessories for a night on the town. Like a proper lady decking the halls, you leave the bulky shoulder bag at home and rely on a simple, but fabulous, clutch.  Depending on the night, there are times when I need little more than my phone.  My iPhone, that is.

Enter Michael Kors iPhone wristlet ($79.95 US).  There are pockets for your license and credit cards (and maybe a folded twenty for cab fare), plus a safe enclosure for your iPhone® 3G, iPhone® 3GS or iPhone® 4.  Let this beauty dangle from your wrist while you sip champers or work the dance floor without a care.  There is even an opening for the camera lens, so you don't have to remove it from the case to capture the night's festivities.  Let the good times roll, your wrist will carry it all. 

Christmas Wish List: Item #32

Are late nights leaving bags under your eyes?  Those aren't gifts, girlfriend.  Elizabeth Grant knows this too and decided to do one better than the average eye cream to prevent morning puff-ups.  I discovered their amazing eye product The Socializer during fashion week when my diet consists of too little sleep and too much coffee.

This 2-in-1 product is also the perfect remedy to holiday partying.  One tube, dubbed Late Nights, is your "too-much-fun-too-little-sleep remedy; apply before you crash and wake up looking like you slept like a baby."  The other tube, Bright Lights, is "all the hydrating, cooling, soothing, de-puffing, dark-circle-erasing, illuminating action we could fit into one tiny tube."

 

Your late night secret is safe!  Available online for $40.

Christmas Wish List: Item #5

For any shoe lover, the idea of not having shoes is unimaginable.  But the notion that not having shoes could lead to death is purely unthinkable.  All hail TOMS Shoes.  This charitable organization has created a movement to outfit children in developing countries with shoes by way of every sale it makes. One for one.

According to TOMS website, a leading cause of disease in developing countries is soil-transmitted diseases, which can penetrate the skin through bare feet.  Wearing shoes can help prevent these diseases, and the long-term physical and cognitive harm they cause.

Wearing shoes also prevents feet from getting cuts and sores. Not only are these injuries painful, they also are dangerous when wounds become infected.

Many times children can't attend school barefoot because shoes are a required part of their uniform. If they don't have shoes, they don't go to school. If they don't receive an education, they don't have the opportunity to realize their potential.

So this holiday season, I have my eyes on this cute pair of canvas wedges that will be perfect come spring. This charitable shopping exercise is well within anyone's budget at $69.  (The resulting feelgood vibes are free.)

Do you need any more reason?! 

Christmas Wish List: Item #12

Pamela Anderson, kindly avert your attention for this blog post.  This one is about fur. 

I adore fur.  It's only since moving to Canada that I even gave fur any thought.  Canadians love their fur.  It's part of the history and well-accepted here.  Not so where I come from.  In fact, while visiting friends in Pennsylvania I discovered (and quickly snapped up) a mint condition fur shoulder wrap at a flea market.  My American friends were aghast, questioning "You aren't worried about wearing fur? Won't you be attacked?"  "Are you kidding?" I replied adding, "in Canada?!" As if.

Yes, I unaplogetically wear vintage fur.  In the words of Rachel Zoe: It's vintage, so it's okay.

That's why I love Montreal's Rachel F.  She is a practical yet imaginative designer of accessories using recycled leather and fur. 

"I only use recycled animal skins and other materials that come from second hand clothes, production waste, and material samples that were not used from large manufacturers. Because we live in an over consumption world, we should take advantage of this opportunity to renew existing materials."

- Rachel F.

And when I stumbled across her latest fall line at Shopgirls earlier this year, I knew these earmuffs would haunt my dreams.  I decided to put them on my Christmas list. 

Christmas Wish List: Item #47

I'm a very late Christmas shopper. I never shop for the people in my life until weeks - sometimes days - before Christmas. But picking things Santa could bring me?  Easy peasy.  Luckily my husband is a great giver with or without any hints from me.  And the best part is he buys me things I would never buy myself (read: splurge-worthy).

Occasionally he marries the "need" with the "want" so I'm hoping to find these under our Christmas tree - a smart, sexy winter accessory.  Why freeze your digits off when texting whilst outdoors?  Barrington's carries these rather sleek cashmere and leather gloves with finer cut-outs, $95.  They only come in black, pine and aubergine and the store is located out in Oakville (totally out of my downtown comfort zone).  But my guess is if they have them, somebody else does too!