Day 4: Pick a Christmas Book

Christmas is crazy fun, but it can also be more than a little stressful and overwhelming. For me there is no better escape from that than a good book. So pick something festive.

I actually re-read David Edding's the Belgariad every Christmas season. At this point my Christmas feelings about it are probably pavlovian. But why it originally struck me as Christmasy is beyond me. Maybe its the amount of time the characters spend walking through the snow?

If you are looking for ideas of what to pick up,  I will give you a few:


For a straight up classic, of course there is the Christmas Carol. And if you are really certain you can't squeeze in reading, you can listen to a recording here.

If you want sometime easy to pick up and put down. J.R. Tolkien wrote letters from Father Christmas to his kids and they have been compiled in a book. Not a story per say but easy to read a little bit at a time.

For those looking to recapture a bit of childhood, picking up a copy of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Remember long before Katniss, Susan's Christmas gift made me wish for a bow and arrow.

For mystery lovers, did you know Agatha Christie did a Christmas mystery for Hercule Poirot? Neither did I, but searching Christmas books I found this.

Lastly, for those who crave a bit of light romance, I'm a huge fan of Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos.

So what do you plan to read?

Day 3: Get Your Christmas Music Line-Up

While the constant Christmas shopping music sets many people's teeth on edge, a Christmas mix of your own making is pure joy. So dig out those Christmas CDs, create your i-tunes play list (or however you organize your music) and create your perfect play list.

When it comes to the classics I'm a fan of stuff like the carol of the bells, It came upon a midnight clear, the holly and the ivy. But I also love the more blues and jazz music too. Some of my favourites include:


Megan Smith, It snowed

Billy Holiday, I've got your love to keep me warm

The original version of Baby it's Cold Outside

Of course as a Canadian I'm including the Huron Carol.

And though its not technically Christmas music I think you can't pass on Stuart McLean's vinyl cafe christmas specials. I found a whole playlist of them on youtube so listen and laugh yourself silly!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQOAx3akAOk&list=PLYPzzSnm2LtkM_cy4-TmA-TXsZn2-gKTS


Day 2: Pick a Charity and Spread Some Christmas Joy

Okay, I know what you are thinking.

'Hey, I signed up for festive shennenigans and the second thing you mention is give to charity... and you work for charity. Deception is a foot!'

But it is the seasons of giving. Not only that, today is #GivingTuesday. We are joining an international movement (and who doesn't like a good movement)!

As a kid, our annual chrismtas donation was to pick out christmas presents to give away in the local drive. But whether your passion is for local causes or international charities, if there is a charity you've been meaning to make a donation to now is the time to do it.

Or if giving money doesn't work for you this year, how about committing to do some volunteering with a local charity in the new year?

If you still need some inspiration on where to give. These are my recommendations.

My environmental charity choice: The Raven Trust

Becausing supporting indigenous rights and environmental rights is a win/win and they have the best chance of blocking the Kinder Morgan Pipeline.

My local charity choice: Your local food-bank.

Because for me Christmas is all about the food. I'm skip the food pacakage donation and make a straight cash donations so that someone can have a tasty and fresh Christmas supper.

My International charity choice: Africa Educational Trust

Because I am a little biased but I'm also proud to work for them. They hold themselves to such a high standard of practise despite the difficult situations where they run their education programmes. My favourite programme AET runs is called School Mothers. Check it out.

Enjoy the feeling of giving and I'd love to hear who you are supporting this year.
The biggest Christmas tradition from my childhood is known as the 'Christmas chain'. This was way more than a count down to Christmas. It was 24 days of festive family activities. Inside every ring was something to do that day. It told us when to put up decorations, when to write letters to santa, when to get our christmas tree. It also contained numerous small, silly ways to mark the holiday season.

I think it was such a special tradition, because it made the Christmas not just one big day, but 24 days of celebration. Though the chain hasn't existed in physical forms since we all become adults. I thought this year I would reserrect it and it would be a nice break from being overloaded with organizing myself to make the annual pilgrimage back to Canada for the holidays.

The point is not that you have to do everything, but to give inspiration about ways you can make the next 24 days festive and special.

I hope you enjoy!

Day 1: Set up Your Advent Calendars


This is the traditional opener of the christmas chain. It was always hanging up when we got up, but we would set up our chocolate and paper calendars after opening it.



This year I've picked up one of these calendars from Montezuma's chocolates!

Please leave comments and photos of your advent calendar below or share other traditions!
When I lived in Toronto, I flat out refused to give into the wellington boot trend. I had owned wellington boots in my life, like when I was a kid and spent a lot of time wading in creeks. But I have always maintained that wellington boots had not place in an urban setting.

However, I will admit that the rain in London forced me to rethink my position. After experienced a couple days of constant downpour this spring and very soaked shoes, I began to see the light (or the rain clouds). 

And thus began my hunt for an ethical option for wellington boots. 

My first find was Roma Boots...

Roma Boots, is the 'Toms Shoes' of wellington boots (though without as much publicity). For every pair of boots they sell, they donate a pair to orphan and street children. They also give 10% of their sales to orphans or street children.

Charity partnership one way companies work on being 'ethical' and its really great to see companies do it. But I don't think it replaces sourcing materials and labour in an ethical way. The website doesn't say anything about how things are manufactured either in terms of labour or environment production. 

Another consideration was that the company is located in the USA, and shipping it across to UK wasn't feasible, or very environmentally sound for that matter.

My second find was SeaSalt Cornwall...

So here we have a British-based company selling British-made boots. They have won the Queen's award for sustainable business (I'm assuming thats a big deal cause the Queen's involved?). Looking over their site, they have one of the most comprehensive overview of their environmental policy, ethical trading standards and social responsibility that I have ever seen publicly posted by a company. These wellington boots are also made of all natural rubber, which is way more ethical than using PVC or some type of plastic. 

But these didn't end up being my final choice. It was the style that put me off in the end. I just wasn't down with the pink. Or really any of the other kinda cutsey colours. We've already established I'm not a fan of the whole wellington boot looks. My enthusiasm for it goes even further down when it involves pictures of anchors or daffodils.

And I choose Ilse Jacobsen!

My final choose wasn't the most ethically certain. Ilse Jacobsen's boots are also made out of natural rubber. This means they have less of an impact when they are made and they can be recycled. They are also handmade, but in Slovakia. While handmade often has less environmental impact than an assembly line, its not necessarily better in terms of labour right. And I can't tell from anywhere on their website about their labour practises.

After much debate, I chose these boots. In the end, while these boots weren't the most ethically option, they were the closest one thing that met both my style and my ethical requirements. I mean, they are a doc martin-esque wellington boots. I will be splashing in at least environmentally friendly style this fall!
From Somewhere is the recycled clothing line by Fashion Revolution co-founder Orsola de Castro. A couple weeks ago she hosted a pop-up shop in her studio in Peckham for a few different designers and I decided to swing by.

I passed through around lunch on a Saturday and a couple of the designers took me around to see all the different collections. They gave me a crash-course in the different approaches to 'recylced' fashion and I thought I'd share some of what I learned with you.

Recycled Fabric

Officially called using 'pre-consumer surplus from manufacturing houses and textile mills' A lot of the ethical designers buy up remnants from other designers collections or fabric or clothing manufacturers and then use them to produce their own collections. I've bought designer remnants before on Queen St. in Toronto, my biggest find being a piece of green Versace stretch-silk for a semi-formal affair. Despite that person experience, I have to admit, I've never really thought about excess fabric from clothing manufacturing. I sort of assumed that it would end up being bought by individual sewers like myself.

But given how many clothing lines exist, there is a lot more extra fabric than individual sewers can buy up. And a huge portion of the impact of producing clothing is actually producing the fabric, and by reusing other people's fabrics you are reducing all of that.

One of my favourtie, recylced fabric pieces was the wrap vest on the dummy. It has a vest back and the front pieces have a tiny button on every point so it can be pinned up in different ways.

Discarded Garments

Some of the designers actually used discarded, 'flawed' or extra items of clothes. Any production line will end up with a few flaws or there are clothing pieces that get made but just aren't sold.  A lot of that clothing ends up in the trash, but some creative re-working and it can be saved.

I thought the coolest example of this was the jeans featured in the picture above. A lot of jeans are distressed post-production because otherwise you can end up with 'distressed' fabric in awkward places.  However, the distressing sometimes goes a bit too far even and the jeans can't be sold. This designer is rescuing those jeans and turning them into bags, skirts and shorts.

Up-Cycled Used Clothing

The final clothing I saw, was the recycling of used-clothing. These pieces are made from clothing that have previously been worn. There are obvious challenge is re-working existing garments, as someone who has tried to alter or rework second-hand clothes can attest. A really popular technique is to patchwork them into new items. I think they make some truly amazing pieces. The designer featured above is a great example of this and my favourite Toronto option, Pre-Love, does this so well!

I couldn't exactly leave without making some small investment. I picked up one of these great multi-coloured vests. I really like tucking it into a fitted skirt or pair of jeans. 

To check out some of these and other recycled designers collections more closely:

From SomeWhere
Here Today Here Tomorrow
and there will be a small capsul collection soon in Viola

Let me start off by saying, my skin and I are not friends. Much like my relationship with my hair, my skin and I have had a long battle of who is in control, and I must say that my skin puts up a hell of a fight.

My skin is dry most of the time, and decides to break out whenever it feels like it - though mostly with hormonal changes and stress. I'm sorry to all the teens who thought zits would be a thing of the past; they sadly don't ever really stop being a thing.

A friend of mine recently read a few of the blog reviews and wondered if I would be interested in reviewing some products from Arbonne ( a company she's recently become a rep for). She let me sample a few of their products (thank you!) so I could get a good idea about what the company, and products are like.

The Brand

For those of you who are not familiar with Arbonne, they are based in California and first started in 1980, with offices in Canada, the UK and Australia. Unlike most cosmetic brands you can't buy them in stores. Similar to Avon, Arbonne uses consultants to sell directly to the consumer.

Also unlike most cosmetic brands, Arbonne prides itself in being naturally based, vegan & PETA certified, allergy tested, pH correct, compliant with Canadian, European, Australian and American standards, and good for your body and the environment (phew...that's a lot of stuff). I've started a naughty list for my makeup and beauty products and luckily Arbonne doesn't have any of the bad stuff I like to stay away from.

According to Arbonne all of their products are formulated without:
  • Animal products.by-products
  • Parabens
  • Formaldehyde
  • PABA
  • Synthetic dyes
  • Triclosan
  • Hydroquinone
  • Gluten
  • petroleum based products
They have a HUGE range of products in everything to do with health and beauty. Ok so, with all that information it's pretty clear that Arbonne has a huge leg up on most of their competitors for the all natural stuff, but how well do they work? 

The Products

I tested out the RE9 series of skin care products which comes with:
  1. Cleanser
  2. Toner
  3. Serum
  4. Eye Cream
  5. Day Moisturizer
  6. Night Moisturizer

The Cleanser

You only need a tiny bit, but it sure does foam up! Now, I'm not normally a foamy cleanser kind of person. Foamy cleansers have historically always left my skin feeling dry,red, and tight; it's never a pretty sight. Not to mention extra foam almost always means extra chemicals. I was somewhat surprised to find that despite the incredible foam, my skin felt clean, but also nourished.


The Toner

The best thing about the toner in this set is that it is a spray. I hate fussing with cotton pads and all that and wiping stuff all over my face. The spray toner is a winner in my books!





The Serum

It gets a bit tingly which I'm not entirely sure I like, but it seems to do the trick so I think I can overlook it. There is very little scent ( there is a hint of citrus, but nothing crazy) and it actually seems to penetrate your skin rather than sit on top which is nice.




The Eye Cream

I can't really speak to how good this eye cream is. Not because it isn't as good as the other products, but because I've never actually been an eye cream person. To me a good moisturizer should be able to do it all as far as I've always been concerned. I didn't test this out as long as I would like, but I would be willing to give this whole eye cream thing a shot.


The Day/Night Moisturizer

With an SPF of 20 in the day moisturizer I was sold as soon as I saw it. I'm on the pale side and as most people know sun exposure is the number one cause of skin damage. With the higher, SPF the day moisturizer is a bit heavy, but I wore thinned out with a bit of liquid foundation for some light coverage. The night moisturizer isn't too heavy which is unusual for a night cream and sets you up for a lovely night to regenerate and rejuvenate your skin!



With that whole whack of skincare products it seems like quite the chore to apply them all twice a day, but I have to say it was actually a pleasure. I found myself getting a bit excited to wash my face in the morning, and couldn't wait to spray on my toner at night too. The whole kit and kaboodle will set you back $395 for all of these products which is a serious commitment to skin care. This is however much less expensive than buying all of these products separately from a similar or comparable brand like Clarins, Estee Lauder, or Clinique.

Conclusion

 I have to say I am very impressed with the RE9 set of skincare products. I haven't felt this confident to go makeup free in a very long time and my skin really does feel firmer, and glowing. With all the good stuff in the products and knowing everything is botanically based it makes me feel good about putting this stuff all over my skin (and therefor in my body). I only have a single issue with Arbonne, and it certainly is not their amazing products.

When trying to live ethically, you try to buy natural products, and ensure that your environmental impact is low, sure. But there are other sides to this too. The human side is also important. Arbonne sadly refuses to work with fair-trade products, and will not release any of their ingredient sourcing information, or information on the working conditions on those who harvest their ingredients.

 It's great to see a company that is so committed to great ingredients and what seems like a more natural approach to the beauty industry. But paying people fair wages and encouraging safe working conditions shouldn't be "proprietary" information, if it is in fact something they support. They should be yelling it from the rooftops and encouraging other companies to do the same.