December is basically already done, right
It’s only December 15, I know, which is actually just half of the way through the month, but I’ve been saying to friends this past week that December is basically already over. It sort of feels like a lost month: you go straight from Thanksgiving to two to three weeks of holiday frenzy at work/school/life/whatever and then everyone starts to leave town to go to their respective hometowns or visit families or just go on vacation somewhere warmer if they’re really lucky. I started telling people I’d see them in January, which I recognize is an insane thing to say, but is also a realistic reflection of how busy and overscheduled everyone seems to feel this month.
But also one of my favorite things about December and the end of the year is reflecting on the goals I set the last year and thinking about new ones for the next year. I just bought a new planner for 2020 (It’s a Hobonichi Techo Cousin, and I cannot shut up about it when anyone asks about planners on Twitter). I liked this goal setting template I found in Catherine Andrews’s Sunday Soother newsletter, and for the last two years I’ve been trying Gretchen Rubin’s 19 for 2019 (and 18 for 2018) list. All of this is to say I love goal-setting season and taking a moment to reflect on what we did the past year and what we want to do in the coming year, something I’m going to be thinking about — and maybe writing about here — in the next couple weeks.
(PS: this is a good tip — start your resolutions in December.)
What I wrote
For Vox’s end of year roundup of our staff’s favorite books of the decade, I wrote about Emma Straub’s Modern Lovers.
And earlier, I also wrote about Julia Phillips’s Disappearing Earth for our coverage of the National Book Award finalists. (It didn’t win, but it was still an incredible read!).
What I’m reading:
Just save some parties for January, The Cut. Extremely true. If anyone would like to invite me to their holiday party in January I am available. December is basically already over.
The age of Instagram Face, The New Yorker.
Should we still be building single family homes?, Curbed.
The electable female candidate, The New Yorker.
How to have a gratitude practice that isn’t annoying, The Cut.
Stop believing in free shipping, The Atlantic.
Shopping sucks now, Vice.
The bath bubble, Curbed.
What everyone’s calling emotional labor is actually just labor, Vice.
The homeownership obsession, Curbed. How did buying houses become such a big part of the “American dream”?
Books
Right now I’m reading Kyle Chayka’s The Longing For Less, a really interesting deep dive on minimalism that traces it from its roots in art to the Marie Kondoism of today.
What I’m cooking
I hosted some friends for brunch this weekend and have lots of great holiday brunch recipes: in particular, I’m obsessed with this very easy sticky toffee monkey bread and this slightly more involved, but delicious, butternut squash and kale strata. And for a slightly healthier, less rich but still delicious weeknight dinner, I made this old Alison Roman standby of skillet chicken with caramelized lemon, kale, and white beans.
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