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1. Poetry: You cannot extinguish that which lights itself from Pádraig Ó Tuama on Poetry Unbound, Hiking Moraine State Park by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza shared by Maggie Smith on The Slowdown, If You Forget Me: Pablo Neruda’s Staggering (Un)breakup Poem shared by Maria Popova on The Marginalian, Dinner Guests and Nothing Today from Julie Barton, The Staircase (“the eternal present”) and It’s Good to Be Here from James Crews, A Loud Death by Richard Jackson, In the Bleak Midwinter and With Astonishing Tenderness and Present by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Love What You Love by Julia Fehrenbacher, Everything is Going to Be All Right by Derek Mahon shared by Patti Digh, I Planted Something by Frederick Joseph, Benny and the Stillness by Gary Lark, and in related news, poet Maya Stein’s Conversations in Poetry series (the next of which is a conversation with poet James Crews).

2. How to Be Human: Kahlil Gibran’s Recipe for Our Spiritual Perfection as a Species from Maria Popova on The Marginalian.

3. The Analog Life Project with Lori Roberts from Little Truths Studio. “Let’s spend less time scrolling our days away and set aside more time to participate, to make, to connect, to remember.”

4. Exposing ICE’s Obstruction and Abuses by Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper.

5. Good stuff on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz: Actually, Mel Robbins, Life is Too Short To Holiday With Racists, and Christian, If You’re Celebrating ICE (or Silent), You Shouldn’t Be Celebrating Christmas, and If Hell Exists, It Will Be Filled With Congressional Republicans, and Empaths, Sociopaths, and Why America’s Divide Isn’t About Politics Anymore, and Please, Do Feed the Artists, and ‘Happy Holidays’ isn’t an Insult to Jesus. Christians Who Weaponize Christmas are.

6. What if you did the thing…relaxed? “What a simultaneously simple and complex invitation” by Alix Klingenberg on Earth & Verse.

7. Vital Cat Update from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds. “This is just a nice little reminder that generative AI is shit.”

8. Are GLP-1s undoing women’s body acceptance work? “When weight loss isn’t the goal” by Dacy Gillespie on unflattering.

9. Recipe I want to try: Oatmeal Molasses Cookies.

10. Traveler Hikes Tallest Mountain in Japan at 2AM—Unprepared for What Awaits. This makes me really sad.

11. Nordic people know how to beat the winter blues. Here’s how to find light in the darkest months.

12. 36 Products Reviewers Loved So Much They’re Buying Them Again As Gifts.

13. Top 25 News Photos of 2025 on The Atlantic. (gift link)

14. How to buy the greatest gifts: personal shoppers on their 17 rules for perfect presents.

15. Sustainable gifts: 27 meaningful presents that do good.

16. The Small Art of Noticing from Patti Digh.

17. The 20 Breathtaking Winners of International Landscape Photographer of the Year 2025.

18. We’re entering a new phase of the resistance. “Mapping the shift from shock to the beginnings of mass action over the last 10 months of the anti-authoritarian struggle in the U.S.”

19. Letters to Boulders. “A poet geologist reads the earth” by By Karen Donovan.

20. The potluck manifesto. “Less shouty than most manifestos, but maybe you feel this too” by Garrett Bucks on The White Pages.

21. Remove What Stands Between You and Your Joy by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

22. The 100 Best TV Episodes of the Century.

23. Presence As Survival. “Being here in a time that pushes us toward performance and harm” by Frederick Joseph.

24. Let’s agree to stop ‘keeping the peace’ this holiday season. “As we approach the holidays, here are eight tips for discussing difficult topics with family that center connection over conflict.”

25. On Telling the Truth, a great prompt from Jami Attenberg, worth considering whether you are a writer or not.

26. You don’t have to stay anywhere forever, an unfinished drawing and an important message from Jenny Lawson.

27. Can you help Elizabeth answer her question?: “If you or someone you love has had brain surgery or a brain injury, will you share your experience with me in the comments?”

28. The sights and sounds of Bhutan.

29. The Art of Wintering: How to Find Strength in Slowing Down.

30. Allowing Yourself to Be: Stepping Out of Doing Mode.

31. 5 questions to spark & direct your generosity. “End-of-year giving will never right the wrongs of this very broken world. That’s not the point, so don’t talk yourself out of giving just because that is the clear truth. Pursue sharing your resources anyway, because it’s the kind of person you want to be with other people, and because doing nothing also won’t change anyone’s material circumstances.”

32. The Things I Didn’t Carry. “I forgot the family treasures, I remembered the Victoria’s Secret bra.” This is a long standing dilemma for me (who lives somewhere with a regular “fire season”) and I never know how to answer the question: What would you take if a fire was coming for your house? “It wasn’t just me: grown women, too, were overwhelmed by these decisions, by the choices between practical and sentimental, by the spontaneous, choice-less pull of emergency.”

33. The Quiet Animal of Your Future and Other Questions from Isabel Abbott. This reads like a poem, every question a potential writing prompt.

34. All Those Tender Spots, “On choosing whether to excavate your past or not” from Jami Attenberg.

35. The Best Novels of 2025 on Five Books. “As 2025 draws to a close, we’ve put together a list of all the fiction books that have won prizes or been picked out by our editors as worth reading this year. This includes books picked out for their literary achievements, as well as good books in a variety of genres, including historical fiction, science fiction and mystery books.”

36. Little Free Library Divinations: Searching for the Meaning of Life in Discarded Books and Found Objects, another gorgeous art project and offering from Maria Popova.

37. Safety Within Unsafety. “How to feel safer when there’s nothing you can do to actually make things safer” from Satya Robyn.

38. Meet Radha, the adorable world’s smallest water buffalo measuring just over two feet. She is so CUTE!!!

1. SNOW!!! We finally got some actual, honest-to-goodness, full on, genuine snow. We had one morning early in the week where it was very cold and there was just a dusting of snow, but a few days later the real storm showed up. They’d predicted 1-3 inches, but we got eight. It was up to Ringo’s knees. We’d had such a long warm dry fall into the beginning of winter that when the snow came, there was still a lawn chair in the yard and our sun umbrellas were still outside.

2. Morning walks. Because of weather and such, I only ended up on one of these this week, which was weird. It was also a late walk because it was extra cold so Ringo and I waited until later in the morning to walk.

3. Family. Mom is still doing good, sleeping more and talking a lot less, but still remembers who we are and getting such good care. Jessamy’s baby is due late January so she had an ultrasound where we can see the baby’s face. I’m going out to Oregon sometime the end of January, to visit and give Mom a haircut she badly needs, start getting her house ready to sell (*sigh*), and if I’m lucky, meet the new baby.

They decorated Mom’s door for the holidays

4. Practice. No yoga this week either, and I’m really starting to miss them. I had a whole plan for a practice honoring the Full Cold Super Moon, but I’ll just bring it next time. Writing on Friday morning was magic, medicine — oh how I adore that group of women! My meditation practice has been easier to find and settle into, which typically happens during this darker season.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. I’ve still been telling Eric every day, “I’m glad you’re home,” even though he’s been back from trip for two weeks. Really, I could tell him that every day for the rest of our lives, because I am always glad he’s home.

Bonus joy: lunch at Mount Everest Café with Eric, texting with Chris and Chloe’, other people’s kids and dogs and Christmas lights, reading poetry, down blankets and pillows and coats, wool sweaters and socks, slippers, watching good TV (right now that’s The Pitt on HBO), listening to podcasts, shopping for Christmas presents (I don’t love everything about it but when I think of something I know someone is really going to like, it makes me happy), a big glass of cold clean water, naan and onion pakora, a hot cup of coffee and warm mug of green tea, Panda Peanut Butter Puffs cereal with Fairlife milk, the moonlight reflecting off the snow, therapy, being able to message my doctor and get a quick response rather than having to schedule and wait for and then pay for an in office appointment, being able to schedule or change or cancel appointments online, Hendrix’s school picture (I know I said that already but it’s right here where I can see it and I just looked at it again), making each other laugh, the hydromassage chair, aqua aerobics, getting to see Frank (my gym dad), sitting in the sauna, snow tires, a warm shower, clean pjs, yoga videos on YouTube (because sometimes I like someone else to tell me what to do, without having to leave the house or put on a bra), naps, clean sheets, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.