Krysten Lindsay Hager - Brunch at Tiffany's

10. “O Holy Night” by Mariah Carey. Celine Dion has a nice version, too, but Mariah hits that note that can send the pigeons out of the church rafters. Of course that means pigeon poo everywhere…still, a great version of the song. Just duck if you’re near pigeons. 9. Muppet Christmas Carol’s “It Feels Christmas” and “Bless Us All.” The first song is just catchy and cute and the second is a fave because the little frog that plays Tiny Tim coughs at the end and since high school I have thought the froggy coughing is the cutest thing ever. What? It’s Tiny Tim. He’s not well. 8. “Give Love on Christmas” by Johnny Gill. I love that man’s voice. He could sing “Happy birthday” and I’d buy it. They never play this one on the radio though. They never play him on the radio period. Probably jealous of his sexiness. 7. “Joy to the World” was always my favorite as a kid because it meant Mass was over and I could go home and open presents. Hey, I was a kid, you try walking past a living room full of...

Check out my review on Rebecca Cantrell' latest, A Game of Lies over at Authors and Appetizers. http://authorsandappetizers.com/2011/08/game-of-lies-by-rebecca-cantrell/

I'm doing the Once Upon a Time read-a-thon and it's not going well seeing as I had a 16 hour power outage that left me in the dark. But I did get some reading done. I'm currently working on ""A Game of Lies" by Rebecca Cantrell. Great so far! Here's a review of another great one I read and enjoyed called "Hemingway Deadlights." Hemingway Deadlights: A Mystery is set in 1956 and Papa Hemingway is at the point in his career where he has stalled a bit in his writing and is drinking even more heavily than usual. Hemingway is living in Key West Florida when the book begins and spends his days drinking. Soon he finds out a friend of his, a local fisherman named Peter Cuthbert, was harpooned to death and the polic department isn’t exactly on the case. Since his writing isn’t going anywhere, Hemingway decides to take a crack at solving the crime himself. He travels to Cuba and meets with a mobster, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara. Guevara informs him tha...

Check out my new review on Dave Barry's latest book! http://authorsandappetizers.com/2011/06/ill-mature-when-im-dead-dave-barrys-amazing-tales-of-adulthood-by-dave-barry/

Check out my new review on "This is Not The Story You Think It Is" by Laura Munson. Whatwould you do if your husband said he wasn't sure he ever really loved you and wanted out of your marriage? http://authorsandappetizers.com/2011/05/not-story-think-season-of-unlikely-happiness/

Recently reviewed a book about making the case for settling for Mr. Good Enough and not the movie fantasy version of Mr. Right. Let me know your thoughts! http://authorsandappetizers.com/2011/05/marry-him-case-for-settling-for-mr-good-enough-by-lori-gottlieb/

Check out my new review of this hilarious memoir! http://authorsandappetizers.com/2011/04/someone-will-be-shortly-notes-from-perfectly-imperfect-life-by-lisa-kogan/

Head over to Authors and Appetizers to win a copy of Learn Something Every Day today only! Leave a comment on the Authors and Appetizers blog to enter to win one of two copies. Include your email address with your comment so we can find you if you are the winner! Winners will be chosen at 7 p.m. CST http://authorsandappetizers.com/2011/04/win-copy-of-fun-trivia-book-learn-something-every-day/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Authorsandappetizerscom+%28authorsandappetizers.com%29

Check out my review on "When We Were Strangers" on Authors and Appetizers! http://authorsandappetizers.com/2011/04/when-were-strangers-by-pamela-schoenewaldt/

I’ve always loved Elizabeth Taylor, but in the last three years I became more familiar with her movies because the Portuguese cable company, MEO, played her films all the time. “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” was on a few times a month, ditto “Giant,” “The Last Time I Saw Paris,” “Butterfield 8,” and even some films from her that I wasn’t even aware she had made. I always wondered why the Portuguese were so fascinated with her in particular since there were rarely any Grace Kelly movies on, or Audrey, or Carole, or even Marilyn. Maybe it was the dark hair. After all their version of “Alice in Wonderland” in their parade features several brunette Alices and not one blond. But then again, how could you not be fascinated with her? I had violet colored contacts in high school and all through college and grad school due to her. Of course with my super dark hair (yes, that is my natural color), violet was the only shade that worked on me, but when I did a makeup segment on the news and someone comme...

There are so many reasons to hate moving. The worst part? Having your nice clean, once sanitary things placed in a box where they are touching stuff that you really thought you threw out. Like when my beautiful throw pillows that can’t be disinfected are placed on the same shoe racks that once held shoes. And not just any shoes. Shoes that walked on ancient European streets that were riddled with stray dog excrement and a trillion years of disease. Remember there were plagues in Europe and your history books had illustrations of carts holding bloated corpses they took off the streets due to said plagues. Hence why my shoe dirt is not ordinary shoe dirt. Plus the road across the street from where I lived had animals on it daily when the farmers walked their cows down it. Why? I still have no clue. Maybe cows need exercise? But it is interesting to note that European farmers dress a lot better than American ones. They would spit on a John Deere hat. But nonetheless, the dirt on my shoes ...

I am not prepared for this weather. I just came from a place where it got not colder than the 60’s and now I have to put on gloves and a coat everywhere I go. A coat? Seriously? Everyday? And I actually wear sweaters now. I forgot how much I hate wearing a coat inside stores and nothing’s worse than a hot heavy sweater under a coat when you come in from the cold and go into a chop that’s toasty and you begin to bake. I was putting up with this cold, but then winter decided to push me and add freezing rain to the mix. I dealt with the snow, but the ice thing is a whole other thing. It makes everything dangerous and it knocked off my freakin’ power for like, six hours. And everyone knows you can only keep the food in your fridge safe for four hours. Maybe I’d be less bitter if the boots I needed hadn’t sold out. Or if the power hadn’t gone out during Brooke and Julian’s wedding on “One Tree Hill.” By the way, didn’t you expect her dress to be cuter considering she’s a designer? And wha...

I went back in time today. No, not some “Being Erica,” time traveling therapy session. Today I got the George Michael Faith box set my husband ordered for me for Valentine’s Day. I opened the heavy box (to me it was heavy, probably not to normal people) and instantly went back in time to that kid who used to sit in front of the TV hoping and praying MTV would play “Father Figure” just one more time. As I opened the box, I found the photos (all hot, like Hottie McHot-hot kind of hot), a concert poster, CDs, and a record. I never had a George Michael record, but the second I took it out of the sleeve, I remembered my mom pulling out her old records to play for me while she’d do my hair. I don’t even know the last time I saw a record—maybe at a club years ago? But there it was, the album I never got as a kid because it was banned by some city or country or dictator as well as my mother. Even though I wasn’t allowed to buy the album, I found ways around that. I taped songs off the radio, b...

Check out my friend Rachel's blog, "Come What May," and her new kitchen utensil giveaway! http://the-come-what-may.blogspot.com/2011/01/1st-blog-giveaway-by-come-what-may.html

My Christmas decorations didn't show up in time for me to decorate the new house for Christmas, so I only had a couple of things up that were sent to me as housewarming gifts. However, Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday so I had to decorate for it. I had brought a bunch of Valentine decorations to Portugal, but when I moved from one place to another there, well they were victims of the great sewer backup. Rest in peace little decorations. I must say this year it wasn't easy finding decorations. Some of the stores had stuff that was too high priced ($50 for small heart bookends?) or they had more stuff for parties or gifts. But I kept looking and found a few things. I saw some ornaments and thought how cool would it be to have a Valentine tree? I only bought two at first because I wasn't sure I'd find a tree. Then I hit another store and there it was: a six foot pink tree. It was a pre-lit Christmas tree, so it was 75% off. It was perfect. It was the righ...

Every blogger has been getting in on this and seeing as I've jumped on every bandwagon since the Cabbage Patch Kid craze, I had to join in, so here is my 2010 review. 1.What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Started watching Katie Price’s reality show. It was oddly addictive. I knew I had watched too much when I caught a glimpse of myself wearing bright pink lip gloss usually reserved for hookers in North Korea with a matching bright pink top and pastel sweatpants. 2.Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? My resolution was, “don’t die,” and that was accomplished. Fingers crossed for this year. 3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Several friends. Mostly baby boys. And I now have an imaginary adopted baby named Charlemagne that I was going to talk to in public to see if that’d get me off the island earlier. No baby news here. I have no biological clock and my husband doesn’t care for children at all. 4. Did anyone close to yo...