Bring. On. The. Cold. I know some of you rejoiced with the 70 degree weather the past few weeks, but not me. I actually prefer not to be sweating as I’m schlepping up and down the stairs of Anthro to finish my holiday shopping, thank you very much. However, I gotta tell you guys: this holiday spirit thing? I’m in it. December has been good to me, and I have a few little things I wanted to share as my fall update, sneaking it right in before winter officially comes on Monday.
BIRTHDAY GIVEAWAYS
Congratulations to Carling, Samantha, Michelle & Bernice, the winners of last week’s HPTurns3 birthday giveaways! I had a lot of fun finding these little gems to pass along to you this week, and I hope you enjoyed them, too. Since this is my third year rocking the giveaways, I wanted to see how you thought they were going. Do you like the prizes? The ways you can enter? Would you rather X number of small prizes so more readers can win? I’d love to hear your feedback, seriously.

The lighting down there guys: #strugglecity
SPEAKING OF BIRTHDAYS…
Last week, to celebrate my blog’s birthday, Jake (my BF) said he wanted to take me out. I happily obliged. We started at one of my favorites for dinner, Ralph’s (760 South 9th Street), and then we were off to Jet Wine Bar (1525 South Street) for a private wine tasting he had arranged. Except when I got there, it was not private, because Jake had invited 8 of my best lady friends to come celebrate with us. We had delicious wine and my buddy Kelly even picked me up a (carrot – YES) cake from Kermit’s Bake Shoppe (2204 Washington Avenue) that was incredible. I was completely surprised and so thankful for my friends and my BF for coming out on a Monday night to help me celebrate Her Philly’s 3rd DOB.
PHILLY HOLIDAY FUN
My friend Chrystina hosted a very successful little holiday party of her own at Williams-Sonoma (200 South Broad Street) last week. She had a spiked hot chocolate bar (#yes), plus cookie decorating and card making stations. It was great to see some of my PHLBloggers friends, and I’m actually off to see them again this morning at our holiday brunch! I’m making this recipe, we’ll see how that turns out. 😉
LAST MINUTE SHOPPING
In case you’re one of the ol last minute shopper types, don’t forget to check out my Philly Lady and Philly Guy Gift Guides. If you’re super last minute and need, actually, the coolest gift finder ever, check out this one Fine Wine and Good Spirits. For one more option: I checked out Christmas Village (Love Park) this year and was impressed! I ended up buying two blocks of fried cheese, and if that’s not a good gift for someone, I don’t know what is. (However these cheese blocks are for me.)
Well, that’s it for today! I have such a fun week planned next week, and you know I’ll be snapping away (username: herphilly)! Have a wonderful weekend! xx