Leave it to Vans to make Christmas extra cool.
Not just skulls, but SANTA SKULLS ($50 at Vans.com). Perfect for kicking back and sipping some spiked 'nog. It's no surprise that Jessica Biel, Ashlee Simpson and Lindsay Lohan trust their chic feet to this classic surfer shoemaker.
MERRY MERRY!
Young Hollywood A-listers have spoken: the most timely timepiece is from Vacheron Constantin.
Kate Bosworth wears the Egerie ($17,200).
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Jennifer Hudson wears the Egerie in rose gold ($29,600).
FYI: rose gold is a big trend in metallics for 2008!
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And Jessica Alba wears the the 1972 with a diamond pave case ($28,700).
Vacheron Constantin has been hand-crafting luxury timepieces for more than two hundred and fifty-two years, and they only produce 18,000 watches each year.
Enough said.
Champagne is always appropriate. But this holiday season the bubbly stuff is making an especially toast-worthy style statement.
In NYC, Moët & Chandon has opened its first-ever pop-up champagne crystallization boutique in SoHo (455 West Broadway between Prince and Houston). So chic! So sultry!
For a flat fee of $30, you can have any bottle of Moët (pre-purchased -- the shop doesn't sell bottles of the good stuff) personalized with Swarovski crystals -- names, dates, monograms, anything up to seven letters. The bedazzling will be done in two days or less.
But be sure to pop in soon. Boutique Moët is open only Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays throughout December from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm. The doors will close for good on December 30th. For more info visit www.moetsoho.com.
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Two of my favorite designers, Victor & Rolf, lent their quirky creativity to a limited edition bottle of Piper-Heidsieck Rose Sauvage, along with a flute and champagne bucket -- all crafted to appear "upside down."
According to the design duo: “When we were contacted by Piper-Heidsieck the first question we asked ourselves was how can we make this bottle, which we think of as iconic, look a little bit like us? How can we make something new out of something eternal?”
The result? They turned a classic icon on its head...literally.
Get your piece of fashion history for $90, and celebrate New Year's Eve in style (I welcomed the millenium with a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck decked out in full red patent leather corset regalia, designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, and it was a very good year).
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Karl Lagerfeld designed this perch skin guitar case for Dom Perignon when he shot the champagne legend's recent rosé campaign with Eva Herzigova. The case holds half a dozen bottles of the house's rarest rosé vintages, plus three flutes.
Dom Pérignon Rosé Guitar Case, Limited Edition
$150,000
Available by special order
212.251.8247
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And then I got this from my trainer Alicia at Complete Body:
A literal buzz kill, but hey, that's what kick-butt trainers are for...sigh...
Nu-Kitchen's Nutrition Director Penny Geller shares her tips for successfully navigating holiday treat temptations:
BEFORE THE PARTY
Eat smaller meals during the day so that you can splurge a little more during the holiday meal without overdoing it for the day. DO NOT SKIP MEALS!!!
Eat a small, low-fat snack before holiday functions to take the edge off your hunger.
Bring a low calorie/low-fat dish to the party to offer to the host.
AT THE PARTY
Drink water or other non-caloric drinks while waiting to sit down to eat. If you want to have ONE glass of wine/alcoholic drink, save it to drink at dinner.
Stand far away from buffet table.
Eat Holiday foods and stay away from "everyday foods". Since these special items are only available this time of the year, indulge a little in those while avoiding the calories from foods that you can have anytime.
Eat half the amount of each food group that you KNOW you are supposed to have. This allows you to go back for seconds for the remaining amount.
Limit yourself to your favorite two starches or grains, and then split your allotted servings in half.
Stay away from added fats (i.e. dressings, gravy, butter). If you must have something, limit it to 1 teaspoon. Use less fattening toppings (i.e. cranberry relish on top of the turkey or holiday ham).
Wear something you look and feel amazing in -- not necessarily tight, but something that if you were to overdo it in, you know you wouldn’t feel great about the way you look anymore –- tent dresses hide everything and may lead to overindulgence.
AFTER THE PARTY
Take a nice long walk after the big meal. Feeling really ambitious? Take a 30-60 minute jog. (You can also take a walk or jog before the meal. No one said you can't do them both).
Nicole Richie wears them (she received them as a gift from event planner Mindy Weiss at her baby shower), and both Joely Fisher and Lindsay Lohan have a stash.
The objects of their affections are Marley's Positive Meaning bangles.
Each bangle (silver, 14-karat plated rose gold or gold) is engraved with positive word combinations, such as Amazing, Capitivating, Beautiful and Bold.
Designer Donna Abbruzzese attributes the inspiration for the bangles to her mother, who reminded her to keep three positive things about her life in her mind at all times.
Donna's positive thinking has clearly paid off.
Bangles range from $50-$120 at Fred Segal, Intuition and Bloomingdales.
Being a fan of all things kid-like, kitschy and "kawaii" (Japanese for "cute") imagine my glee when I stumbled upon this all-natural, flavor-infused, nearly-nil calorie (40 for 12 ounces) bottled water.
Meet "bot"!
Neither a guerilla marketing strategy from Nigo or Pharell, nor a blast of brilliance from Sanrio's hipster design team, this quirky product is actually the practical brainchild of a clearly cool husband and wife team, Brian and Cricket Allen. These parents from Princeton, New Jersey, simply wanted to create a healthy beverage that their twin daughters Emily and Lyla would enjoy drinking.
Little did they know (or maybe they did) that grown-ups like me would bound onto the bot bandwagon.
Hydrating suddenly makes me happy. In fact, I drink it so frequently that my Red Carpet Countdown training team is shocked when I'm not toting a berry-flavored, bunny-emblazoned bottle.
Get your fix at Whole Foods Markets nationwide. Visit botbeverages.com for more info, or just go straight to botland for some super-kawaii animation and groovy tunes.
I'm fresh off week two of The Red Carpet Countdown (which henceforth shall be abbreviated to "RCC" for typing efficiency), and I feel amazing. Stronger, both physically and mentally. I have more energy. I am actually enjoying going to the gym. Even better, I am seeing muscles that have not existed since I first met Mr. Husband in 1999. He is suitably impressed.
The RCC is definitely in full swing, and it's worth every minute.
In addition to re-training my mind and body, I am also learning
how to eat properly.
I've learned that it's not just quantity and quality of food, but
also the frequency of the meals. I've been warned that I need to keep
my blood sugar and energy levels up in order to withstand this
intensive workout program, while at the same time eating foods that
work as fuel and will be burned off efficiently. Sounds complicated. And, since one of my primary goals
of the RCC is stress reduction, I decided that stressing about food during this
program would be counterproductive.
Enter Nu-Kitchen, the gourmet-meals-delivered-to-your-doorstep operation in NYC, that counts Sarah Jessica Parker and Mary Louis Parker (she's on the program right now, too!) as fans.
Jeff Kravits/FilmMagic
Nu-Kitchen's Director of Nutrition, Penny Geller, signed me up for the Nu-Kitchen 200 program, 40 days of healthy meals (3 meals, 2 snacks per day) delivered to my doorstep, geared towards healthy weight reduction.
(Here's Penny!!)
She even made an office-call and measured my metabolic rate to determine how many calories I need each day to achieve my RCC goals in the healthiest way possible (every client who signs up for the Nu-Kitchen 200 gets the same one-on-one special treatment from a wellness coach). This 15 minute test required me to breathe through a mouthpiece into a hand-held machine called the Body Gem. My nose was lightly pinched with a plug (like the ones little kids wear while swimming), which means that you can't really swallow and end up drooling a lot. Penny kindly stepped out of the room to let me drool in peace.
According to the test, the minimum number of calories I need each day is 1500. That means if I sit in one place and do absolutely nada all day, my body consumes 1500 calories on its own. However, I made a mistake and scheduled a training session the morning of the test; to get an accurate number, you should refrain from eating, drinking caffeine and exercising at least five hours prior to the test. Oops. So, factoring in my workout (which would likely have raised my resting metabolic rate), we estimated my actual number was closer to 1350. Based on my workout schedule, Penny wants me to consume at least 1500 calories a day (the Complete Body gang agrees). That sounds high to me, considering I want to drop pounds, so she agreed that based on how I feel (I'm also learning to "listen to my body"), I can adjust calories accordingly. I'm still at 1500, working to drop down to 1350.
Lucky for me, Nu-Kitchen makes such transitions ridiculously simple. Not only can I log onto the website to select which yummy meals I want each day, but I can also select the number of meals -- and thus the calories -- that are delivered. Oh, and the food is really, really tasty. From chicken burritos to pancakes to chai latte brownies and cupcakes...
I've almost forgotten about Christmas cookies (almost...).
Admittedly, this is probably the most difficult part of the RCC for me, especially around this time of the year. I am of the mindset that everyday is a holiday, so why not have a little treat?! A Christmas cookie? A single glass of champagne on New Year's Eve? Penny said, "No." If I truly want to make a memorable red carpet entrance (a la Reese Witherspoon at the Globes last year when she turned every head in Hollywood with her fab figure tucked perfectly into that yellow Nina Ricci number, not to mention those bangs...), I have to be rigorous.
Frazer Harrison/Getty
There is no magic or miracle involved in slimming down and toning up. This stuff is simple chemistry: Consume calories, burn them off.
No wonder I always preferred my English classes...figgy pudding never seemed to have any real consequences.
InStyle features 179 gifts ideas in the December issue, but this morning on The CBS Early Show Julie Chen and I chatted about the dozen must-haves for the women on your list. 
Use as inspiration or at least for hint-dropping...
WATCH THE CLIP HERE!
Yesterday morning we woke up to SNOW (yay!) in Manhattan. Mr. Husband suggested hitting the rooftop and sipping hot chocolate. Excellent idea.
But instead of grabbing just any old mugs and scarves, we chose to turn our "outing" into a mini-event complete with white cafe chairs, Pucci boots, fur-trimmed metallic leather gloves, silver-glitter Urban Decay eyeliner (you'll have to trust me on that detail),silver-trimmed snowflake mugs and Jacques Torres hot chocolate (get some at MrChocolate.com). The Brooklyn Bridge just happened to be there already.
The point? To inspire you! Add a touch of personal style to everything you do; even the simplest moments will become ones to remember.
HAPPY DECEMBER!!
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