Svelte Elf The holiday season should be the sweetest time of the year, but for many it's not. High expectations and sometimes too much of a good thing can lead to stress, exhaustion, and general malaise. Alcohol and bad nutrition can also have a disastrous effect on your looks and spirit. For instance, alcohol can both dehydrate skin and leave you bloated. How hideous is that? Fear not. Although you may feel as curdled as last night’s eggnog, help is at hand. Drink plenty of water. Carry it with you. Always drink a whole glass of water before going to bed. It helps beat dehydration and vanquishes headaches. Ideally, limit alcoholic drinks and stay gorgeous inside and out. But if the worse happens - and it can - dilute! If you get a nasty acne cyst, a cortisone injection from a derm or acne clinic can send it away in a day. As for Zeno, the new acne zapping machine, I find it pricey and unpredictable but if your doctor will give a free trial go for if you like. It works well for some mild cases and require several goes. For milder breakouts, don't pick! Try drugstore acne cream with 2% salicylic or 5% benzyl peroxide. And, hands off! Cinderella late-nights can tempt the most fastidious woman to just flop and drop. A week of after-five affairs on top of nine-to-five days – with shopping and wrapping and extra cooking, too -- can do you in before the first gift is even unwrapped. So, get a survival kit. Here is what we like at DD: Olay's Daily Facials. Just wash and toss. Perfect. Now, there’s no excuse for going to bed with a dirty face. Just think of the subway or the highway’s grit on your pillow! Yuck!!! Even eye make-up comes off. Olay Regenerist Daily Regenerating Serum is a small miracle in a bottle for very little money. It instantly plumps and smoothes all skin types. Dermaglow Instant Lip Plumper does what it says. Lips dehydrate too and tell on you the next morning. Who needs that? Chanel's Teint Innocence Naturally Luminous Compact Make-up. Used sparingly, it conceals and smoothes your little sins. You’ll look angelic after the most devilish nights. Napoleon Perdis Barely Blushing cream blush for cheeks or lips so easy to apply and makes you look so deceptively rested. Final essentials -- Tide to Go and travel packs of Kleenex tissues. Holiday gatherings are mostly merry, but fraught with the perils of tipsy tarts, spilled Sazeracs – and (we hope) joyful tears. Pomegranate juice is full of antioxidants that can help your body resist the damage caused by smoke, pollution, and other nasty cell killers. It makes a fabulous festive drink mixed with soda. Pick some up, drink it, serve it, and share it. A great break from liquor. Substitute miso soup for your regular lunch. Instant organic miso will do. And at 90 to 120 calories and almost no fat, it will soothe your digestion and give you lots of healthy protein. Your Geisha-lite lunch will help to balance holiday calories. Soy-based foods and solitary walks can also act as a mood elevator in a season fraught with emotion and expectation. So simple, so effective. Add a brisk lunch-time walk and you may survive the season as a svelte elf.

Gift Ideas After years of writing editorial gift guides, I find myself buried this year under gift guide advertising. It's colourful and occasionally helpful. Do you need more? I don't know. But as everyone -- sigh -- is not getting a very pricey watch, fur, or Xbox. So here are a few ideas for gifts across the budget spectrum that I think are fun and fabulous. Sexy-Comfy Image Karin Pacione Booties:www.woolenstocks.com There is nothing worse than ethnic "fashions" that leave you looking like an extra in The Good Earth, or a refugee from an ethnography museum. Still, these cozy booties made by Woolenstock are so sexy and chic you can picture Kate Hudson and Angelina Jolie relaxing in them après anything. Handmade in the Himalayas, we adore them and feel sexy -- yet deliciously comfy -- in them. Perfect for long winters and looking fetching in front of a fire. A special gift for yourself or a friend. Image Karin Pacione Booties:www.woolenstocks.com For the Glamour Girl: Chanel has limited edition of their classic fragrance, lotion, and pink bath oil in beautiful retro glass bottles. There is also dry spray bath oil. It’s drop-dead elegant. Bombshell Lip Gloss is a fruity soft gloss with tiny dioramas in the handles. They depict characters such as “Wilderness Girl’. Well done, adorable, and collectable, as the handle becomes a keychain. Stuff a stocking, or give it as a gift to a girlfriend or your niece. It's nice. For The Budding Julia From Williams-Sonoma: the Food Made Fast Series. More exotic and contemporary than other revised "basics"’ books. Beautiful and inspiring. Editions feature pasta, weeknights, baking, and more! Love these books. Give one, give them all. More great cooking gifts: any microplane grater! And Allessi's Todo cheese grater is classic and fabulous enough for the table. For Everyone The most underrated gift today is fine soap. Soap is lovely and satisfying to use -- a pleasure for the senses and a balm to skin. Keep it wrapped and ready for giving. A few favourites, all available in different packaging and quantities: Caswell-Massey Almond and Cold Cream, a favourite of fine hotels. French soap is fabulous too from L'Occitane. Shea Butter, Lavender, or Honey or any of the beautiful RogeR & Gallet soaps.

Image Karin Pacione Belts from www.braveleather.com Get Wrapped No matter how we plot and plan, most of us scramble to find yet another perfect casual outfit for a holiday gathering. This season, try a belt to pull together an outfit from clothes you already have in your closet. A good leather belt -- either a waist clincher or hip belt -- can add interest to long tunic sweaters, or can be used to replace the belt on a coat sweater. Worn with a great pair of boots another hot trend this season the right belt, boots, and necklace can bring your outfit to a new level. Belts are also fab if you fall in love with one of the new bubble dresses that are everywhere now, but don't relish the Goodyear silhouette. Do what the models do off the catwalk: Belt it and boot it to give it a shape. Don't have a small waist? Just buy a hip belt and wear it lower. It works. Image; Karin Pacione Belts from www.braveleather.com Until next week, we hope your life is sweet. Enjoy the season, look at the lights, and think about someone you love. Silly perhaps, but it should make you smile. Have a Dolce-Dolce Week.