"Mom, can you pick me up? She's talking about table linens again..."

The "Ralph Lauren Holiday" phenomenon, unhinged John Derian, and a brief history of ticking stripes. (And you thought entertaining was dull.)

"Use the good silver" is fine. But this is better.

Habits can be a prison, but habits can also be a gift. It depends how you use them.

We've reached Peak Personalization. (Sort of.)

Happy first day of fall, or autumnal equinox, or Mabon, depending on your degree of witchiness. (Doesn't it just make you want to buy school supplies?) Back-to-school in my youth was invariably characterized by the unveiling of a months-long art project: the customization of my school supplies. Color-coded

You haven't dropped the ball on Father's Day. (Yet.)

Yes, there are a fair amount of Amazon links. But *I'M* not the one who left it to the last minute, am I?

A bathrobe-free Mother's Day gift guide.

Also notably absent from these pages: slippers.

Everything's on sale at the same time and I can't deal.

It's a sale emergency and I just had to tell someone.

Let's set the goddamn table.

Making a nice table and not getting in our heads about the stigma of domesticity.

The Printemps Report

Wherein, I visit the French department-store-that-says-it's-not-a-department-store, so you don't have to.

The stuff that improved my life for under $50 this year:

Five things that I would've happily paid double for.

Last-Minute Gifts: Buy This, Not That.

An already-judgey newsletter evolves, Pokemon-style, into its final form.

Gifts for fashion girlies.

(This is probably the list you've been waiting for.)

Gifts for "kitchen people."

(A category that may, as it turns out, include some men.)

beauty

The best gift is a gift that disappears.

(Hear me out.)