This Week: Break Out The Bubbly

Corks were popping around the globe this week as celebrities toasted the holiday season and their own good fortune.

Good cheer was evident in New York, where the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was lit, in Washington, where President and Mrs. Bush unveiled the White House holiday decorations, in London, where designer Stella McCartney switched on the Christmas lights and in Germany, where the annual Christmas markets opened.

And with the stagehands' strike over, the bright lights were back on Broadway for the first time in nearly three weeks.

Jennifer Love Hewitt and Scottish boyfriend Ross McCall had an engagement to celebrate, while the singer Usher and his wife Tameka Foster and actors Drea DeMatteo and Shooter Jennings welcomed newborns into their families.

Actresses Jessica Simspon and Drew Barrymore took new men home to meet the parents this season. Simspon's boyfriend, Dallas Cowboys' quarterback Tony Romo, spent Thanksgiving with Jessica's family in Waco, Texas, while Barrymore and her boyfriend Justin Long were seen over Thanksgiving weekend in her hometown of Fairfield, Conn.

Victoria Beckham is celebrating not only a reunion with the Spice Girls but a new gig as the model for the Spring 2008 Marc Jacobs fashion ads.

And, according to The Hollywood Reporter, there's lots of room in Reese Witherspoon's budget for champagne. The Oscar winner was named by the magazine as the industry's highest-paid actress, commanding $15-$20 million a picture.

With awards season in full swing, actor-director Sean Penn and documentary maker Michael Moore were the toast of the 19th annual Gotham Awards. Penn's "Into the Wild" was named best feature film and Moore's "Sicko" took documentary honors.

America Ferrera continued her winning streak, taking top prize at the at the 9th Family Television Awards. Zac Efron of "High School Musical" took the best actor trophy and both the Disney show and "Ugly Betty" won in their respective categories. "Pushing Daisies" was named best new series.

Tom Cruise and Eva Longoria took home trophies at the annual Bambi awards in Duesseldorf, western Germany. Longoria, a star of "Desperate Housewives" won for best international TV series and Cruise won the Courage Award for starring in a Nazi-era movie over the objections of the German government.

It may be too early to bring out the bubbly, but a host of celebrities, nominated this week for Independent Spirit awards, should be getting their champagne flutes and acceptance speeches ready. Among those vying for the awards to be given out Feb. 23 are Cate Blanchett, Anjelina Jolie, Ellen Page, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sienna Miller and Don Cheadle.

And finally, the mirror-ball "Dancing With The Stars" trophy went Tuesday night to race-car champ Helio Castroneves and his partner Julianne Hough, who beat Spice Girl Mel Brown in the finals of the show's fifth season.

But it may have been a bittersweet victory.Just hours after becoming "Dancing With the Stars" champion, Castroneves announced that he and his fiancée, Miami jewelry designer, Aliette (Ali) Vazquez, had broken off their year-long engagement. Vazquez was reportedly unhappy with the kiss Castroneves planted on his partner after their winning turn on the dance floor.

By MARY JAYNE McKAY