parisan holidays with the fabulous karen

please meet my friend karen. here we are with matching earrings. because she's REALLY cool like that and made it happen! bling bling.

every december (okay, this is our third one...but still! THIRD!) we get together at a tiny wine bar off south lamar called house wine. it is fantastic and always a big treat.

this year we got to sit outside and enjoy an amazing, cool and slightly drizzly evening. i had white, she had red, and we also each shared two giant plates of food. i had their artisan plate with pears, local cheeses, jam, crackers and dark chocolate. in one word: delicious. karen, had their version of s'mores...with mozzarella balls, olive tapenade, sun-dried tomatoes and a buttery sliced baguette.

let's be honest tho. who doesn't want to cook something in a tiny pot of FIRE that comes with your meal? i'm pretty sure we toasted almost everything on our plates at one point. major yum, friends.

i feel pretty special because karen is buddhist, and i'm like the only person she celebrates christmas with. i love it. we chat about this every year and it means the world to me that we get to hang out. it's fun, too, because we both have very similar tastes, so gift shopping for one another is a blast! i don't know what part is more fun...shopping for the gift, or watching each other open them. here's the loot i scored this year!

behold: a pocked mirror, fabulous gold earrings, AND...that tray. we were g-chatting one day about this tray. it's from urban outfitters, and they say it's for, "jewelry"...please. i'm totally going to put little chocolates on it. you know i will! it is so gorgeous!

so i titled this post, 'parisian holidays.' this is because of an article karen sent me a few weeks ago. it's a little bit fabulous and we decided we need to be more like the french in several regards. we dressed in our fancy earrings and celebrated the cheese on our plates. it's the little touches that make nights like this so special.

i really, from the bottom of my heart, hope we have these nights until we are 90 years old.

thanks for reading!