Kyle Hepp

December 28, 2011

This was a Sunshine State Christmas for us. We got flights up Miami for the holidays about a month and a half ago and I’d been looking forward to the trip ever since then.

The weather here is perfect right now — sunny, balmy, 80 degrees. Warm enough to make you happy but not hot enough to make you sweat.

We’re not huge Christmas people. Seba and I normally don’t even get each other gifts. I mean, we do. But more on random occasions when inspiration strikes than because we feel the pressure of a looming red date on the calendar.

But when I got to my dad’s house, I started getting in the spirit!

He had this adorable Christmas tree up. Charlie Brown, baby!

And it was filled with presents! We’d agreed not to buy each other anything, but happily, we all broke the rules. Which was convenient because if only one person had broken the rules and purchased gifts the others would’ve felt really bad.

There was even more under this tree when we first arrived. But my dad and I are the same in that we cannot stand to wait to give people their presents. So of course when he said, “Can we celebrate Christmas early?” using the excuse that we had to drive up to my Grandma’s and it would be inconvenient to take all the presents up there, we started digging into the stockpile.

And then every day we opened a few more

My dad spoiled us rotten with Godiva — all for me, Seba doesn’t like chocolate. Neither does my dad, so that made it obvious who the culprit was when in just four days I opened the empty box and sadly asked, “Who ate all my chocolate?”

He also gave me a gift certificate and along with some other Christmas shopping money I received, I went and did some damage at the mall! My main purchase was a pair of Helmut Lang shorts. I am crazy obsessed with them because they’re gorgeous. This was a big deal, as they were expensive (even though they were bought on crazy sale at less than half their original price!) and used up the bulk of my Christmas gifts, but also because I never wear shorts. 99% of the time, in life, you’ll find me in dresses or skirts.

But this year I’m challenging myself to break out and wear more separates. I want to make bolder fashion choices and not always stick to such a routine.

Hence the reason, in tandem with the beautiful, beige, linen shorts, I bought the world’s ugliest pair of crazy patterned hammer pants from Forever 21

To every ying there must be a yang.

And my dad spoiled us rotten in another way…he’s cooked for us quite a few times while we’ve been here! My dad is an amazing chef but works a lot and normally doesn’t have the extra time to spend in the kitchen. This holiday season he whipped up a couple incredible meals for us. Simple but delicious. See Exhibit A below. Note: that is not my steak. I am weirdly weird and don’t eat steak. I enjoyed chicken breast with that meal.

I gave Seba a fantastic and possibly relationship-destroying gift this year — noise canceling headphones. Now, when I talk to him, he looks back at me blankly, points the headphones then shouts at eardrum exploding levels, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” You know, because he can’t hear himself either

But he’s been wanting those headphones forever so my dad and I went in together and got them for him. It was nice to give Seba a gift he was really into, he’s a hard man to shop for.

Did you receive or give any gifts you’re extra excited about?