I can't say I'm in love with OPI's Holiday collection this year, but it is a solid collection.  I don't think there are any standouts that a polish collector really has to have, though Merry Midnight and Shim-merry Chic are rather unusual and worth a look.

I bought Sapphire in the Snow, Merry Midnight, Smitten with Mittens and Dear Santa from OPI's 2009 Holiday collection, Holiday Wishes.  Here are the bottle pics in that order, from your left to your right.

Sapphire in the Snow is a crème polish I'm really digging, though I haven't heard a lot of buzz on it.  On me, it's definitely a blurple- part blue, part purple.  Which may not be all that descriptive, since purple is blue and red together, but Sapphire is definitely more than just your run of the mill navy.  I started out with two coats of Sapphire on my thumb, and I thought that was enough.  I might do three coats next time to see if it goes on any darker.  While Sapphire is more on the thin side, it is also opaque and lovely.  I have a bit of bubbling, but I think that was due to the Nail Envy I put on my nails just before bed last night.  Here's a bottle picture of Sapphire in the Snow compared to Russian Navy Matte:

Merry Midnight is really neat in the bottle- shimmery navy with uneven, oddly-shaped orange flakies.  MM functions as a topcoat until about three to four coats are on the nail.  It's surprisingly thin and watery, but I suspect it was meant to be that way.  The base of MM is navy, but it appears to have white or lighter blue supermicroshimmer, plus slightly larger electric blue sparkle and orange flakes.  I think the orange flakes help make Merry Midnight Halloween ready, and I think those flakes might look wicked cool under a mattifying topcoat as well.  The best part about MM being more thin is that the flakes look neat with multiple coats.  Some of the flakes are closer to the surface, while others are deeper under a few layers of sheer navy.  It gives MM more depth and interest.  If you just want the sparkle, you could layer a few coats of Merry Midnight over Sapphire in the Snow.  If you want the depth, just put down three to five (depending on if you use thin or thick coats) layers of Merry Midnight on its own.

Smitten with Mittens is my favorite of the red sparkles OPI has to offer this season.  The base color is dark red, and the shimmer appears to be maybe just a shade lighter than the base color.  It's the darkest red of the collection, with the base color leaning towards being more cool-toned than warm-toned.  I see some gold sparkle at the bottom of my bottle, but I really don't see any gold on my nail.  Almost wish I did, though!  I felt two coats of it were enough.  Easy to apply and pretty to look at.  I do like it, though I don't love it, despite my dispassionate description!

Dear Santa is another shimmery red, lighter and more of a true red than Smitten with Mittens.  I do see a smattering of gold sparkle at the bottom of my bottle, but again I don't see it on my nails.  This color is the one that sold out the quickest at my store, and I can see why.  It's just red- not too light, not too dark, just a perfect Christmas red.  It's not incredibly exciting, but it is festive.

I included a swatch of one of the two new Fall 2009 Designer Series polishes since I only bought four of the Holiday OPIs.  DS Mystery is described as "an alluring dark violet diamond shimmer."  Yup, diamond shimmer, so it's not holographic.  Really wish it was, because the base color of DS Mystery is really pretty.  The base color is more blackened than Sapphire in the Snow and more blue.  The shimmer seems to be yellow gold and orange copper, though I'm not sure that someone who isn't into polish would even notice the two different colors.  I'm not even sure that I'm not hallucinating two different colors...  I only had to do one coat of DS Mystery and it was opaque!  I like the cool-toned base with the warm shimmer, so this one might be wearable for both cool-toned and warm-toned folks.  Here's a poor bottle pic of Mystery next to the poor brochure version of Mystery (note the different-colored shimmer):

In these swatches, two coats of Sapphire in the Snow is on my thumb.  Three/four thin coats of Merry Midnight is pooling around my cuticles on my index finger.  Two coats of Smitten with Mittens is on my middle finger.  Two coats of Dear Santa is on my ring finger.  One coat of DS Mystery is on my pinkie, and if you look hard, you can see where I smudged some of it off on the side and had to dot more Mystery on top of newly bare nail.  I tried to Photoshop some of my frazzle out of these pictures, but sometimes I forgot and sometimes I gave up and sometimes I did just plain bad Photoshop... so there ya go.  I apologize in advance!  Come for the swatches, stay for the frazzle.

I picked up some colors for my unbelievably wonderful friend Duffi of HeartPsychic.  From your left to your right, we have Merry Midnight (again), Crimson Carol, Holiday Glow, Shim-merry Chic and another CND Effect- Gold Sparkle.  Underneath Crimson Carol, from your left to your right, is Dear Santa and Smitten with Mittens.

OPI has some gift sets out for the holiday as well.  I opted for the Santa Paws set containing Sensitive & Peeling Nail Envy and "holiday 'puppy' slippers."  The slippers are red with a white dog on the tops.  The bottom of the socks have little rubber nubs to prevent you from slipping.  I could definitely see someone making good use of those gripping nubs while running away from their dog, who is trying to attack the "dogs" on their owner's feet.

Annnnnd I'm done.  For now, at any rate.  If you have any questions, please feel free to comment or email.  Unless it's about my frazzle, in which case I'm just going to tell you that I was born with frazzle and I'll die with frazzle.  Nothing anyone can do.

More OPI Holiday swatches:

OPI Holiday 2009 from Scrangie

OPI Holiday 2008 from Scrangie (BNS is here) and The Polish Addict (Part 1 and Part 2)

OPI Holiday 2007 from 15 Minute Beauty Fanatic