The Big Chill

We've been having a spate of what my friend Raza and I like to call "Boo Radley weather"-- dead leaves swirling at your feet, brisk wind nipping at your ears, the smell of wood-burning fireplaces aloft in the cold air--except in Los Angeles, our version has giant hunks of palm trees strewn about the street and people looking ridiculous in winter parkas and snow hats. Which led to this piece of brilliance:

It's true. Living in Los Angeles thins your blood and knocks every bit of East Coast-bred Chicago-living cold-weather survivor instinct out of you. I remember a time in Chicago when I walked to campus when it was 70 degrees below zero with the windchill. 70 BELOW. My nose hairs and eyelashes would freeze with little icicles on them, like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.

The view out our back window in the East Coast.

I've gone soft, I guess, but I'm probably the only one around here who also enjoys this sort of weather -- it reminds me of my childhood days in the East Coast, snuggling back into bed when school was cancelled by a snowstorm, smelling the wood burning in the fireplace, wearing boots and sweaters to brunch with my girlfriends and sipping hot chocolate from City Bakery on the west side of NYC. There was the horrific side of it too--like weirdly enjoying being blasted by the hot, polluted exhaust from a passing city bus just because it warmed you up a little bit. This weird LA version of cold--with crappy Uggs, palm trees incongruous in the sunny horizon,  swimming pools still uncovered--It's not right. Just not right. It leaves me feeling chilly but has no "cozy" in it at all.

Yeah, yeah, you're pretty, LA, but you ain't cozy.

So here are some of my sad attempts to cozify the home to make it feel more like a wintry haven and to recapture that Boo-Radley-ness of the East Coast cold.

Make your bed cozy.

You spend half your life in bed, so it may as well be a comfortable little slice of heaven. Snuggly comforter, floaty curtains, calming colors, and a view of our garden makes it easy for me to stay in bed underneath the warm covers.

Roooowr! Furry alarm clock

A warm landing pad.

This super-soft flokati rug from Design Within Reach does the trick for warming up your feet by the fake fireplace. It can double duty by the bedside, making the mornings a little easier to step into, or triple duty as a throw on a chair.

Steaming hot tea.

Nothing better than curling up with a book and nice hot cup of chai while the police sirens wind is howling outside. Anthropologie mugs courtesy wedding registry. 

Snuggle up with warm bodies.

Preferably with a few SAG screeners to watch.

I started off this post meaning to make some sort of uplifting statement about how to get cozy in LA's winter chill, and I realized at the end I haven't done such a good job. What are your favorite ways to get warm and cozy in LA's cold weather?