i'm being filmed for the TODAY Show tomorrow

and other updates from a very festive weekend

before we get into the fun, this edition of the sunday series may be too long for email, so I’d recommend clicking out to read in browser or even better, in the substack app, where you can like and comment! your engagement on Substack means so much to me 💌

hi, friends!

when I arrived at my godmother’s place for Thanksgiving, I found myself walking in the door mentally tangled up in an email sitting in my drafts. my family was working on a photo collage of pictures from holidays past, and I was annoyed with myself for being like, “I’ll be right there, I just need to send this one email!”

but that one email was important.

that one email was a response to the TODAY Show producer who had reached out about a story she was working on. and I’m going to get there—I’ll be sharing all the juicy details on what the feature is about with my paid subscribers at the end of today’s installment of the sunday series, but first, a little festive season catchup!

curatedbykayla

A post shared by @curatedbykayla

West Village Book Club does our first ‘favorite things’ party

we had our final @westvillagebookclub meeting of the year on Wednesday, and it was a double header as we discussed our December pick (our first Tessa Bailey…) and did a favorite things party. it’s likely that you, too, have been seeing videos of favorite things parties across your feeds and are curious about what hosting one could entail. if you’re interested in hosting your own, I’ve outlined how it works below, but first things first: I’m super excited to share our West Village Book Club Favorite Things Party Gift Guide outlining all of our ‘favorite things’ that the seven of us brought! from epicurean delights to things to uplevel your workout to French-woman-approved skincare, we had an incredibly well-rounded curation of goodies under the tree.

who’s who: breaking down our faves

• Chelsea’s faves: Joie: A Parisian’s Guide to Celebrating The Good Life, Bonjour Mug, and Embryolisse Lait Crème Concentré moisturizer

• Caylee’s faves: Owala water bottle and Alo socks

• Laura’s fave: Boy Smells candle

• Jenna’s faves: Pura 4 Diffuser with Fraiser fir scent

• Nicole’s faves: Brightland olive oil, anything from Fishwife, Ayoh! mayo, and Pistakio pistachio spread

• Hilary’s faves: disposable cameras and anything from L’Appartement 4F Bakery (pictured here is their croissant cereal which you have to go to the actual bakery to buy!!)

• my faves: Caudalie Beauty Elixir, Caudalie Energetic C+ Detox Mask and Klorane dry shampoo

how to host your own favorite things party

1. set a budget: we did $40 per gift

2. pick how many gifts everyone will bring: we did two gifts per person!

3. carefully select your favorite thing or favorite things that collectively come in at/around the budget. both gifts should be identical! we had a couple of people bring two different gifts and that also works because it made it fun to have more variety under the tree

4. show up to the party ready to present your fave things!

5. draw names out of a hat one by one: you’ll go forward to backward through the names for the first round of gifts, then backward to forwards for the final round. meaning, if you are selected first, you choose first and last. if you are selected last, you choose both of your gifts at once as you’re rounding up the first round of selections and kicking off the final round of selections

6. there’s no stealing like in white elephant! everyone gets to go home happy!! so fun. so festive.

in the gifting spirit? in a recent post, I curated seven different gift guides or, you can hop directly to my ShopMy for tons more ideas linked below!

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festive season in full force

I’m feeling delightfully festive this holiday season. earlier this week, we did pre-holiday party drinks at St. Regis’ King Cole Bar and had way too much fun doing so. last night, my mom and I (she’s in town to join me at 30 Rock tomorrow!!) went to see Handel's Messiah performed by the New York Philharmonic and tomorrow, it’s all things Rockefeller. I’m fully embracing being a tourist in my own city and loving it! I’ve also been referring to my list of ‘31 ways to make december sparkle’ and trying to cross off one a day—linking up the post where I listed everything below in case you missed it.

31 ways to make december sparkle

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new york city musings: small businesses making their way from BK to WV

• Edith’s Sandwich Corner: after starting to sell hand-rolled bagels and dishes inspired by the Jewish diaspora out of Paulie Gee’s pizzeria in 2020, owner Elyssa Heller opened Edith’s Sandwich Counter in Williamsburg. today, it’s more than a pandemic pop-up success story, with their second location set to open in the West Village on the corner of Charles and W4th Monday!! I cannot wait to have their most popular sandwich—a BEC with a latke layer—in walking distance. did I mention this creation made its way onto The New York Times’ list of 57 Sandwiches That Define New York City? lucky us!

• L’Appartement 4F: even if you’re not a New Yorker, if you’re active on IG, there’s a very slim chance that this viral bakery’s highly aesthetic content and coveted collaborations with large brands haven’t found their way into your scroll. L'Appartement 4F began in a small Brooklyn apartment as a two-person cottage bakery making handcrafted small batches of slow-fermented, sourdough bread. since they’ve curated a menu that brings France to NYC with a brick-and-mortar in Brooklyn Heights that opened in May of 2022. this January, they are set to open at 119 W 10th St—if you speak New York, this is just next door to Rosemarys’s and across from our beloved Jefferson Market branch of the NYPL!

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the TODAY show of it all…

okay, for fear of having buried the lede, I’m ready to share what tomorrow is all about. since I’m actually going to share the exact email thread between the producer and me, plus, my advice for perfecting the art of the DM slide, I’m keeping this one just for my paid subscribers. if you aren’t one yet, it would mean the world to me to have you join our premium subscriber sunday crew! Substack also has a gifting option if you’d like to gift access to a friend who you think may enjoy being on the list xKD

now, let me share exactly what the outreach from NBC looked like and my very lengthy (me? verbose??) response…