You know you’ve done it.  You’ve thought to yourself, “Which Hollywood celebrity would I want as a friend?  Who would I go to the exclusive parties with, send Christmas cards to, invite to my wedding?”  Well, you can deny it if you’d like, but I will admit that I’ve envisioned what the glamorous life of celebrity friendship could be.  And right now, there is no one else in Hollywood I’d rather rub elbows with than the uber-talented Emma Stone!

The lovely Emma Stone is poised for super-stardom. Let's hope she remembers her fans this year with Christmas cards!

Let’s face it:  Emma Stone is the new “It” girl in Hollywood, thanks in large part to her star-making turn in the hilarious teen comedy Easy A.  I know what you’re thinking.  You hear the phrase “teen comedy” and think raunchy, potty humor with a flimsy plot and so-so acting.  But this movie is smart and biting, satirizing the effects of high school gossip on reputations, as well as society’s obsession with scandals.  Stone stars as Olive, an “invisible” outcast who starts a rumor that skyrockets her into social visibility; unfortunately for Olive, it’s not the kind of rumor you’d like to be known for.  Stone is at her best, balancing Olive with sass and heart.  Her performance even earned Stone a Golden Globe nomination for Lead Actress in a Comedy.  Let’s hope that’s the first of many more to come.

But Stone’s star power in Hollywood has been cemented with The Help.  Based on the best-selling smash by Kathryn Stockett, The Help dominated the summer box office, standing out in a season with way more flops than hits.  Even more amazing is the word-of-mouth praise for the movie, which has garnered Oscar talks for some in the cast, especially Viola Davis.  Stone stars as Skeeter Phelan in this 1960s Civil Rights story.  Skeeter, along with Davis’s Aibilene, work together to document the stories of African-American maids working for their white employers, and the struggles they face.

Emma Stone is a force to be reckoned with (just ask Jim Carrey…he’s her biggest fan!).  With all of her previous box-office success and appeal, it was no wonder she was chosen as the female lead in next year’s Spider Man reboot.  I can’t wait to see more of her, and I truly hope she can go on to become one of our generation’s leading actresses.

This would've made the perfect photo to accompany their Christmas cards. Jim and Jenny are pictured with Jim's daughter, Jane, and Jenny's son, Evan. Too bad!

The announcement that Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey are splitting up after a five-year relationship made me kind of sad when I heard the news. Although unmarried, from what the tabloid TV shows and other news items reported, it seemed that the couple had a real solid thing going and it looked like they would last for quite a long time. Alas, it appears that there won’t be any McCarthy/Carrey Christmas cards sent out this year.

It’s a shame, too, because Jenny McCarthy had always maintained that her autistic son, Evan, and Jim Carry always had a special relationship. Despite Carrey’s zany behavior during talk show appearances and movie roles that exhibit a somewhat irreverent personality, Carrey’s closeness with the boy shows what the man himself is really about. In fact, it was a couple of years ago at a rally in Washington, D.C. that Carrey admitted that, “Autism made [him] a man.” Although we are not privy to the details of how the actor and McCarthy’s son bonded so well, the fact that the future will be different for them certainly is a disappointment.

McCarthy came into the public eye initially when she posed for Playboy magazine in 1993. Her career branched out as she began to appear on television and as an actress in several movies. To some, McCarthy is most respected for her autism advocacy. She is an author of several books on parenting and autism; her first publication came out in 1997. She is also a spokesperson for the organization Talk About Curing Autism and a board member of Generation Rescue. She believes vaccines have much to do with the spread of autism and that less is more. Through her research and hard work, McCarthy has improved Evans’s condition to the point where he is now classified as “typical”, meaning that although he still has auditory issues, his autism has been cured.

So, while the bad news is that a longtime relationship has apparently ended, the good news is that her son is doing very well and it looks like he has a bright future ahead of him. So this year’s Christmas card – while it may lack the face of Jim Carrey – will be a bright and cheery one nevertheless.