Weekly Love: Week 125

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope the very beginning of 2013 has been treating you well! I had a pretty quiet New Years Eve, spending some time on Skype with my best friend after she got in from her celebrations, eating chocolate cookies and watching Fresh Meat and Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenix (it is my favourite Harry Potter book, but I'm not sure what my favourite Harry Potter film is). I watched the ball drop live online in New York with still a few hours to go in Los Angeles, then I rung in the New Year watching the London fireworks from earlier in the day at midnight. Somehow I felt it would not be a New Year without hearing it rung in by Big Ben! (The fireworks were amazing, right?!)

1. The quickest way to my heart is always via a box of champagne truffles. | 2. The adorable picture advent calendar my parents sent me to open every day in December. | 3. Usually I open my stocking on the end of my parents bed, but this year as I was in Los Angeles for Christmas I opened my stocking box sitting on by bed over Skype video chat with my parents on Christmas day! | 4. Leftovers from my steak Christmas dinner cooked up with pasta and some leftover tomatos on Boxing Day. | 5. Snape, Snape, Severus Snape, my absolute favourite Harry Potter character. Though as a child I had a scary amount in common with Hermione Granger, I've always held a soft spot for the bat of the dungeons, even before we all knew he was not actually evil. While I'm watching the films or reading the books I try and remain in the parallel universe in my head where he survived Nagini's bite. Killing off Severus Snape, and allowing Hermione to marry someone as dim witted as Ron are two things I'll never quite forgive J.K.Rowling for! | 6. I adore mint Aero, so I especially love December when they come in Christmas tree shapes!

• The Downton Abbey Guide to Blogging Like A Classy Lady.
• Everyone who rides the London Underground should take time out to visit this exhibition. 
• The 10 Most Scandalous Fashion Lawsuits. 
• I think we all need to stick to Holly's New Year Beauty Resolutions.
• I never used to eat red meat, but living in America, the Beef capitol of the world has converted me. So, when I went to cook my Christmas dinner of steak, I realised I'd never cooked one before, but this guide saved me - so I thought I'd share it!

This month the second half of my column detailing the 'rush' process to join an American Sorority I went through at the beginning of the year is online over as my Project LA column at The High Tea Cast this month, as well as if I actually ended up joining a sorority or not, which a lot of you have been asking me!

7. Cooking in my new Cath Kidston apron, a Christmas gift from my parents - I've wanted one for ages! | 8. Cinnamon breakfast pancakes with lashings of maple syrup. | 9. Rereading Look Back In Anger in preparation for my class on post war British drama that starts on Monday.

• 5 Ways To Get Blog Post Inspiration From Pinterest. 
• Have you ever wondered what the very worst Christmas presents someone could buy you are? 
• Fashion Blogging Resolutions For 2013.
• What to eat while you are watching Downton Abbey.
• We all spend time making super fancy cocktails, but how many of us know how to make, or have even ever had a classic champagne cocktail? 

What have you been enjoying this week, and what have you got planned for the weekend? I start classes again on Monday (excited to be starting classes in modern British drama, Comparative Politics and Milton) so I'm going to spend the weekend getting myself sorted for the new quarter and getting ahead on some of my reading!