CDFL Holiday Extravaganza 2014
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and that’s especially true here at 3100 State Street. We’re having a holly jolly holiday filming our video Christmas card (stay tuned!) and continuing to work hard for our clients as we head into the new year.
We’ve also taken some time to create a design professional gift guide, complete with commentary and holiday trivia about some of our team members. Have you ever wanted to know which Christmas movie interior designer Lori Willis can’t get enough of? How about who has no pause button when it comes to devouring Bluebell’s Christmas cookie ice cream (guilty)?
There’s lots of good stuff here to help with last minute gifts, along with some pretty great snack ideas and sweet Christmas memories. Enjoy, and happy holidays from our team to yours!
Clark’s List
Even in 2014, we are sometimes required to actually write stuff down – and when this happens, we need a pen to get the job done. What better option than an indestructible hand-crafted metal pen? Tactile Turn was started by one man in his garage, and he has continued to hand craft each and every pen that he sells. With a universal Parker or Pilot G2 refill you can use any color or ink type with this for years to come.
If you want to keep your focus and avoid being distracted by the many things going on around you, it doesn’t get much better than the Bose Quiet Comfort 25 Acoustical Noise Canceling Headphones. Whether you are listening to classical music, jazz, contemporary or hip hop, you will hear every sound the artist intended for you to hear and nothing else. If you are trying to listen to country, I can’t help you. Just be sure to double check if you think you smell smoke, because you won’t be able to hear the alarm if the building is on fire.
Half-Zip Pullovers just happen to be the greatest piece of apparel on the planet (fact, not opinion). So when someone who currently has a dozen half zips in their closet right now tells you this is the half zip they want, you should want it, too.
$3,000 a day to race a Porche in subzero temperature on ice? Yes, please.
Breitling Superocean Chronograph
Parker’s List
I love simple, well-made objects that are the best at what they do. Also, coffee. This travel mug is a no-brainer.
The battle of the bulge is real. Anything that can assist me in that battle is welcome. Bonus points for being sleek and unobtrusive.
It’s been an amazing year of college football here in Mississippi, and I always love representing my Dawgs. Cool, classic, vintage-looking MSU tees.
Lori’s List
Glencrest Sofa [via]
36″ Transitional Induction Cooktop from Wolf
Dickinson Apron-Front Sink from Kohler
Barn Door Track from Rocky Mountain Hardware
Peace on earth
David’s List
Philips 431643 Hue Personal Wireless Lighting frustration-free starter pack
The Outlink Outlet
Dremel Idea 3D Printer
The Whiskey Wedge
USB Thermoelectric Cooler and Warmer
Hannah’s List
Hanukkah decorations have come a LONG way, especially now that West Elm has gotten in on the fun.
Post-workout-gear-elbow patches? Big comfy sweater? Unnecessary decorative zippers? This giant lululemon sweater has it all.
You can never have too many cute little trays to hold your odds and ends, especially when the tray designates itself as a cute little place to hold your odds and ends.
I have a major coffee table book addiction, and this little beauty would be right at home amongst my other overpriced grownup picture books.
Delicate gold jewelry combined with Snoop Dogg lyrics? I think so.
A rose gold candle that smells like my favorite holiday accessory: champagne.
A very glam take on my morning coffee.
Once the holidays are over, I really need some help getting through winter. I’m pretty sure this coat would get the job done.
My nerdy self finds misused quotation marks to be the world’s most hilarious thing, so I obviously adore these bookends.
Once we got their wishlists, we got personal with some holiday trivia.
Here’s what we wanted to know:
1. Favorite Christmas movie
2. How do you get your holiday snack on?
3. What’s the best (or worst) gift you’ve ever received?
4. Favorite family tradition
5. Favorite Christmas lawn decoration
6. Favorite Christmas carol
Lori Willis, Interior Designer
1. Christmas Vacation
2. Gimme some eggnog! Love cheese balls, sausage balls…and spicy pepper and cream cheese spread is also a fave.
3. Best: A Welsh Pony named Popcorn
4. Making Christmas candies
5. Lights!…“250 stands of lights, 100 individual bulbs per strand, for a grand total of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights!!!”
6. Joy to the World
Parker Anderson, Intern Architect
1. Home Alone
2. Bottom shelf bourbon. Nog optional.
3. Circa 6th grade. An electric guitar I had obsessed about. My parents acted like all the presents had been opened, and then pulled one last box from a hiding place. Classic Christmas trickery. I was ecstatic. It’s a cheap guitar, doesn’t play well, and it’s not particularly cool these days but I still have it, and plan on keeping it forever.
6. Not a proper carol per se, but Last Christmas by Wham! (seriously…I love that song)
Clark Wells, Landscape Architect
1. Home Alone 1 & 2 (in that order)
2. Funfetti Sweet-Nothings
3. Worst gift: gingerbread house kit / Best Gift: Knight Rider DVD box set
4. Christmas morning breakfast
5. Light-up Yoda Santa
6. Hark the Herald Angels Sing
David Luter, Mechanical Engineer in Training
1. Elf
2. Red and green peanut butter M&Ms
3. I got a wife as an early (December 14) Christmas present last year. That counts, right?
4. Melted cheese for Christmas breakfast
5. The tackier the better
6. Oh Holy Night
Hannah Orlansky, Director of Communications
1. I honestly cannot choose. I love everything from Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys to Elf to Christmas Vacation. So…let’s just say all of the movies.
2. Latkes, cheese straws, and Bluebell Christmas cookie ice cream.
3. New Kids on the Block tickets
5. All white twinkly lights or the tackiest tacky you can tacky.
6. Ocho Kandelikas is a really fun Hanukkah song, and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree reminds me of Miss Lynn’s dance classes during my childhood. Every year we learned a new dance to it and the best behaved girl got Miss Lynn’s lipstick on her nose so she could be the class Rudolph. It won’t surprise anyone to know that, despite taking twelve years of dance with Miss Lynn, I never got to be Rudolph.