Eat, drink, shop, & be merry ;)

I can't believe 2011 is almost over, and with that the last few days of my holidays. So far I've spent most of the time watching movies, catching up with friends, eating and shopping.

First I met up with Rasilla and Babybubblz at Aroma Espresso Bar, and tried the white hot chocolate for the first time which was awesome!




On Christmas Eve, I also had an dinner with friends, we kept it simple with store bought rotisserie chicken, spinach & berry salad, roast potatoes, cinnamon raisin bread and apple pie for dessert.



The holidays wouldn't be complete without some wines to accompany the food.




On Christmas Day, I ended up cooking a full dinner for the boyfriend's family...turkey, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, avocado salad...but ended up not taking pics, lol. Mostly because by the time I was done cooking I was too tired to remember and only thought about it after the turkey was already carved.


I also treated myself to a few things for Christmas ;)

First I had spotted these Cookie Monster mitts online and finally found them at Chapters. Granted these are the kids size not adults size, but from the measurements I found it looked like the kids definitely suited my hands better.



The material is surprisingly of good quality - 80% wool. The mitts have a lining which probably accounts for the 20% lining, which helps keep my hands warm and prevents the wool from feeling scratchy.




Esprit had a 50% sale off outerwear the week before Christmas (still on-going) so I picked up down jacket. The only jacket I had previously was the North Face Greenland Parka (see below) which tended to make me look like a shapeless blob that was 100lbs heavier...




I decided to get the Esprit jacket because it had a fitted belt and was nicely tailored so it gave some shape and less bulk. The jackets came in only 3 colours: black, blue, green. I ended up going with the green as black seemed nice but too generic and blue looked like it washed me out.



Stock picture (only black online)



Material is 50% down and 50% feather, so not as high quality as the North Face (100% down), but it is still quite warm.




They also had 40% off the entire store (now 50% for Boxing Week), so I picked up 2 dresses as well which were already discounted so the 40% was additional :)






How did you spend your holidays? If you scored any good shopping deals, do share!