Happy Sunday friends! Is it just me, or did this year have year long weeks, and the year collectively felt one week long? Like it rolled up to the party, scoped out who was there and decided to leave 15 minutes later. As the days get shorter, it’s hard not to get introspective about the year, and daydream about the new year. Tell me, do you write resolutions, or things you’re looking forward to in the new year? If I have one goal this next year it’s to get a better paying job. I deserve it and 100% need it.
A new year does not equal a new you, but there is something refreshing about turning over a figuratively new page in life. Candidly, I think I speak for most people when we say “good riddance” to 2024. This might sound weird, but the even years tend to stretch and grow me and the odd years tend to be calm.
Here’s to finishing out the year, end of sentence. I don’t want to finish it strong, I just want to finish it. I wish you dinner parties, warm blankets, long talks with friends, dark bars with fireplaces, and peace. So much peace. At the very least we deserve that.
This Sunday, take any, take all, but mostly, take care of you.
• If you’re hosting a dinner party, first of all good for you, secondly, I have a guide for you! (Joy the Baker)
• For the Wordle-rs, can I please make a case for Spelling Bee? Don’t get me wrong, Wordle is great and Strands seems to be the new hotness, but as a Scrabble lover Spelling Bee satisfies me so much. (NYTimes Games)
• I’m a long time blog reader and user – I had a LiveJournal and a Xanga in the early aughts (yikessss). By far, my favorite part of blogs are posts like these, link round-ups, and gift guides. They really do suggest the coolest things, like Oprah’s favorite things before it was Oprah’s. Previous villain blogger, Kim, makes a strong case for the gift guide/end of the year round-ups. (Substack)
• The question that always seems to linger nowadays is, “How do you make friends as an adult?” The trouble with friends is how do you KEEP friends as an adult? cuz my goodness it’s hard. Shout out to the voice note and the group chat, but sometimes it makes me forget that I haven’t actually seen my friends in months and sometimes years. (New Yorker)
• Are you doing a cookie tin this year? I know Joy is, because she’s basically running a bakery out of her Texas home. Let’s call a spade a spade! I’m doing a favoritism cookie tin for my building. Basically the folks that haven’t been totally awful for no reason are getting cookies, and the singular apartment that doesn’t get it, gets coal. Kidding, kinda. I’m thinking of incorporating these ginger cheesecake cookies in it – they look incredible (recipe here!). (Joy the Baker, NYTimes Gift)
• To me, this is the ultimate winter fragrance. Woodsy, slightly smokey, milky, and… marshmallows?! Oh, so basically I’m edible. Love that for me. Real talk, I cannot afford the full size, so I used Scentbird! They’re great when you want to be bougie on a budget. (Commodity, Scentbird)
• Joy is fighting hard for eggnog this holiday season and I am on her side – I LOVE eggnog. It seems to be a polarizing drink, either you love it or hate it with no room in between. What say ye? If you don’t enjoy it, maybe put it on top of your cookies! (Instagram, Joy the Baker)
• It can be hard to sum up my story in a sentence: raised in a cult-like church, went to a Christian college, figured out my sexuality way later in life, now living with my girlfriend and 3 cats, my family is passive on a good day about it. If you ever feel like having the longest conversation ever, I’d love to talk to you about it. This Modern Love anniversary article feels familiar to my story – going from dating the church to dating a woman. (NYT Gift)
• Money is *tight* and buying gifts for everyone isn’t in the cards. But! This little guide for gifting among your friends is genius. Also getting all your gifts from TJ Maxx is really the move – they have everything! (Apartment Therapy)
• For when you need a playlist for when the sun streams in through the window or when your knee aches when it rains sometimes, let Sam Irby recommend you a handful of extremely specific playlist offerings. (Substack)
• If you don’t need specific playlist offerings, let Sufjan Stevens sing to you about Christmastime in only a way he can. At this point his holiday album is a classic. (Spotify)
• Swifties, the Eras Tour has come to a close after 152 shows – incredible. How we doing? Do you have support groups? Are the group chats in shambles?? Her bass player reflects on the closing show – one degree of separation from the legendary artist. (Rolling Stone)
• Also, 38 Eras Tour shows, one line repeated, I can. not. look. away. (Someone did the calculations and that is roughly 140k this one fan spent. My goodness!) (Twitter)
• Finally, I think cold weather calls for warm lipsticks, don’t you agree? (Fenty Beauty)
P.S. A reader sent me the most encouraging note after my last Sunday post, and I just wanted to say I received it. Thank you so much for your kind words!
20 Responses
I made the classic (without eggnog) version of these, but did a simpler icing of vanilla/powdered sugar and milk.
These were delish and totally looked like copycats. How fun!
Your opening about 2024 feeling like a year of year-long weeks yet somehow just fifteen minutes long hit home so hard! There’s something so refreshingly honest about just wanting to “finish” the year rather than “finish strong” – it perfectly captures what so many of us are feeling.
I loved Spelling Bee and did it every day (I even shared my pregnancy news with my students using the game!!!) with my class up until Covid hit in 2020. Post Covid, I don’t know.. I just can’t bring myself to play it anymore. It really makes me sad!! I don’t know why I am like this!
Aw… that’s how I am with Wordle. It just doesn’t hit the same anymore it’s so weird!
Abby!! A link to me and goddess Sam Irby in the same post? Bless you.
Kim you know I’m obsessed with you – YOU KNOW THIS!
“I don’t need to finish strong. I just want to finish it.” Same here. 2024 laid me flat out. I’m tired and want to hibernate for a few weeks. One good thing I learned this year is being softer to myself. No more “white knuckling” it through life. Have a great holiday!
I absolutely cannot fathom A. having or B. spending that much money on seeing the same concert 38 times?!
Thank you for the modern love article.
I’m always thankful for your words. <3
This year has been… A lot. 2024 ends with a cancer diagnosis in my family, so I only hope for health and peace in the coming year.
I love Wordle (so much that I play in three different languages), so I need to check out Spelling Bee. Sounds right up my alley.
Great list, Abby. Here’s hoping you do get that job you need. ??
I’m so sorry – I hope for good results in the coming year. Cancer is the worst. And thank you for the encouragement!!
There’s a podcast called you may be interested in called Twinnuendo hosted by twin brothers who have had a tumultuous time with the Christian church. One of the brothers is a former pastor who is straight and married with kids. The other brother is gay and is a drag queen who is also married and hosts another podcast/YouTube channel with his trans drag queen friend and sometimes drag partner called IMHO. Warning though: Twinnuendo can be very explicit. They talk primarily about the church and their experiences growing up in it and attending Christian colleges in the US south. They do use a lot of humor and sarcasm as a way of communicating about their lives.
This past week one of my students told the epic story of how she used her parents’ credit card without permission to buy Eras Tour tickets to see it for the third time, took a variety of planes and cars to go across the country last minute with her BFF, and somehow still made it back in time for midterm exams. I’m both inspired by her spur-of-the-moment initiative and galled by the amount of money being thrown around…it’s a lot.
100% agree on recommending Spelling Bee as a daily game, I love it at least as much as (& maybe more than) Wordle. Thanks for all the good recommendations as usual!
I love the ideas for a gift swap! I’m trying out felted soaps for gifts – I bookmarked that idea from Joy last year and it has been so fun making them with my son.
I’m contemplating a link round-up style to increase engagement with the parents of my middle school students.
Love the links. Thank you always. ??
i love that article about coming out and breaking up with the church ?? thank you for sharing. also which cookies are those at the very top? they look amazing and i want to make them haha
The cookie link is in the egg nog paragraph. And I agree, I must make them!
I appreciated every bit of this post, from the acknowledgment that money is tight (it is) and the Era tour is done (I will miss those grainy livestreams so much) to that gorgeous Commodity fragrance (gold is my fav, but Milk is also amazing). I’m ready to move on to a new year that I plan to start with looking for calm, contentment and with a soft sigh.
I love a good Christmas cookie and loved that you featured one called a “Ginger Cheesecake Cookie”. When I clicked on the link, I was so disappointed to see that the recipe was from the New York Times and therefore, needed a paid subscription to obtain it. Why link to something that you cannot even access unless you pay for it? I don’t see the point, really.
Ah, didn’t see the paywall for the recipe – I’ll update the post with a non-paywall link!
When I tell you that the even years have always felt like challenging, no fun years, and the odd ones just slip by somehow more easily! I have a friend who is the only other person I’ve shared this with, and we always check in on each other more during the even years because we need it!
Not that I’m necessarily looking forward to next year, but it was super cool to see that sentiment reflected on a public platform! I hope next year is more of a sigh and less of a scream, but man…I don’t know if I can allow myself to be so optimistic.