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. Poetry: Otherwise by Jane Kenyon, At Machu Picchu by Alison Luterman, At the Base of the Mountain by Amanda Hawkins and Paperweight by Ryan Teitman on The Slowdown with Maggie Smith, Ginkgo in Downtown New York and When Memories Come Back and And in the End, What Does A Life Add Up To? and Too Late? and After from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, I Hope This E-mail Finds You Well and On Healing and Pink Glass and Mercy and Mother Is Still Adjusting by Julie Barton, The One Thing by Pádraig Ó Tuama, Thanksgiving by James Crews, Night Walk by Alice N Persons on Heart Poems, Reasons to Survive November by Tony Hoagland shared by Patti Digh, How About Now by Kate Baer (which is also the title of her latest, just released poetry collection), Kiss of the Sun by Mary Ruefle, I believe in all that has never yet been spoken by Rainer Maria Rilke, Thanks by W.S. Merwin shared on The Marginalian, and Concentric Futures by Kim Stafford.

2. Emerging Form Episode 151: Alison Luterman on Striving. (podcast) “Alison tells us about her ongoing singing lessons and how they have changed the way she listens, not only to music but to conversations and the rest of the world. This practice is at the heart of her new collection, Hard Listening. Not only does she read from the book, but she shares about what she learned about creativity from studying the lives of her singing heroes, the interweaving of politics and creative practice, and how to explore and share pleasure in the midst of difficult times.” P.S. forgive me if I already shared this one.

3. On Being with Krista Tippett with Justin Vernon: Being Bon Iver. (podcast) “A sweet and searching conversation between Krista and the man behind Bon Iver at this year’s On Air Fest, full of wisdom and revelation. He is a person who experiences deeply, who metabolizes creatively, and who just keeps growing. He opens up with Krista about the strangeness of being loved for how he put his broken heart to music. They venture into the mysteries of God and of numbers, the problem of fame, and the deep working of time in a life. He’s now released a gorgeous fifth album, SABLE, fABLE. This one tells of immense healing and learning.” 

4. The Dreads by Danusha Laméris. “May we be each other’s answering voices, and may we wake to the possibility that we do not know who we will answer or how. Or, for that matter, who will answer us. But hold, somehow, the possibility of chorus. Of overlapping song.”

5. Things to consider from The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz: The MAGA Nightmare is Almost Over, America, and Are Trump Supporters Capable of Loving Anyone?, and The Christian I Refuse to Be, and Ceasefires, Scorched Earth, and Ghostings: Navigating the Holidays With Screwed Up People, and 10 Terrible Things to Give Thanks For.

6. I tried Haruki Murakami’s 4AM writing routine from Christy Anne Jones. (video)

7. What groups taught you how to group? “Prompts to explore community lineage” from Elise Granata.

8. The 17th edition of the Unravel Your Year workbook plus the Find Your Word 5-day course in an ebook format from Susannah Conway.

9. Leah Lamb: Stories Show Us the Way on the Sounds True podcast. “If you’re seeking guidance through uncertainty, hoping to reclaim your voice as a creator, or wondering how to tell stories that serve life itself, this conversation offers both inspiration and practical wisdom for the path ahead.”

10. Lily King and Judy Blume in Conversation. “Simple advice from the best” from Jami Attenberg on Craft Talk.

11. A Beautiful Mess (& a Note of Gratitude) on The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. “How we find our words again—and where we go from here.”

12. A Very Good Piece Of Creative Advice From Tom Morello on Terrible Minds with Chuck Wendig. **Spoiler Alert**: “Don’t leave behind who you are in what you do.”

13. Ryan White Has Loved Every Film He’s Ever Made — but ‘Come See Me in the Good Light’ Changed His Heart. “The recipient of this year’s Magnify Award instantly knew a documentary about the ‘rock star poet’ Andrea Gibson would be special, but he had no idea how much the process of making it would impact him.”

14. ‘If I was American, I’d be worried about my country’: Margaret Atwood answers questions from Ai Weiwei, Rebecca Solnit and more. “Democracy, birds and hangover cures – famous fans put their questions to the visionary author.”

15. This gingerbread baked oatmeal tastes like the holidays—and packs nearly 20g of protein per serving. I want to try it.

16. ‘Hamnet’ Review: The Rest Is Silence on The New York Times. (gift link) “Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal star in a heartbreaking adaptation of the best-selling novel.”

17. Why is everybody losing weight and what do we do? Sincerely, a person who’s lost weight by Lizzo. “What do we do? We continue to have conversations. We continue to hold each other accountable. We release ourselves from the illusion that there is only good and bad. We re-introduce nuance into our discussions. I want us to allow the body positive movement to expand and grow far away from the commercial slop its become. Because movements move…”

18. Good stuff from Patti Digh: Inside my first memory palace (“On a Childhood Shaped by Silence and Stories”), and The shape of thankfulness (“A practice of returning”), and The soul we keep losing (“It returns in the pauses”).

19. Death and Taxes by Courtney Martin. “Maybe I’m just a sad girl whose dad is dying a long, slow death, but what passes for politics these days so often feels like it’s missing the whole point. We all die. If we are lucky, we grow old and learn the frustration and beauty of limitations. Politics should be about the urgent prospect of being alive for a finite amount of time and wanting that experience to be as fair and beautiful as possible for as many people as possible for as long as possible. Until it’s over, and then honoring that universal fate, too.”

20. An Existential Guide to: Loneliness. “Loneliness didn’t arrive all at once” on The Shadowed Archive.

21. China’s reclusive young ‘rat people’ stay in bed all day and gnaw away at the country’s economic prospects.

22. 2025 in Reuters Pictures: A Visual Chronicle of the Year’s Most Memorable Moments. 

23. Step aside Seinfeld — meet Mark Twain, the stand-up comic on PBS News Hour. (video)

24. The 1918 Influenza Pandemic in America. (documentary) Survivors speak about their experience.

25. What other people’s poems are teaching me. “How close reading changes the way we write” by Alix Klingenberg on Earth & Verse.

26. A little repair from across the veil. “A birthday, a yoga mat, and a message I wasn’t expecting” from Andrea Scher.

27. Shabbat Morning Light: Stepping into the Present from Jena Schwartz.

28. TIME’s Top 100 Photos of 2025.

29. Why Your Kitchen Looks Like That on The New York Times. (gift link) “A century of American kitchen design, from the dawn of electricity to the kitchen island.”

30. Death drives a hard bargain… (and why you shouldn’t hoard your stories) by Laura Lentz on Writing at Red Lights.

31. Let’s get cozy! “Why the familiar helps me dare the unfamiliar” from Danny Gregory.

32. Interest is everything on The Imperfectionist. “Finally, there’s something importantly resilient about interest, too. Meaningful projects aren’t always fun; life certainly isn’t always easy; and the moment in history through which we’re living definitely isn’t calming and relaxing. But maybe it is always, or almost always, possible to find and pursue something that’s truly and enliveningly interesting about the place in life in which you find yourself, and the paths that are open to you to take.”

33. I Wish You Could See Yourself the Way We See You by Laurie Wagner. *sob*

34. “The Terror of Turkey Day” from Jonathan Edward Durham, “In which I share some of the worst Thanksgiving advice I’ve ever received.”

35. The loneliness fix: I wanted to find new friends in my 30s – and it was easier than I imagined. “It is said to be harder to make friends as you age. But I found that a mix of apps and other tools, as well as a happy attitude, led to a world of potential new pals.”

36. Being labelled a Highly Sensitive Person was validating and empowering – until it wasn’t. “An online personality quiz made me feel understood, but it also created a mental cage.”

37. I Swore I Saw Andrea in a Hotel Elevator. “What if signs are how the dead write poetry?” by Megan Falley. “So now I say thank you to what remains. The silhouette. The shadow. The ashes. The memory. Their face on the silver screen. The laughter I am fortunate enough to have captured in so many videos. The love letters they keep dropping onto my path. And the impossible, outrageous luck of having been loved like that at all.”

38. What Caregivers Actually Need From You. “Support, not criticism—and here’s how to help” by Elizabeth Kleinfeld.

39. Jimmy Cliff, reggae giant and star of landmark film ‘The Harder They Come,’ dead at 81. In related news, How Jimmy Cliff’s ‘The Harder They Come’ Became the Most Important Reggae Movie Ever Made. And P.S. The soundtrack for that movie is one of the best albums, ever. Also, With One Movie and Soundtrack, Jimmy Cliff Changed Reggae Forever on The New York Times. (gift link) “The 1972 film ‘The Harder They Come’ and its accompanying soundtrack brought the genre out of Jamaica and helped pave the way for future stars.”

40. 100 Notable Books of 2025 on The New York Times. (gift link) “Here is the standout fiction and nonfiction of the year, selected by the staff of The New York Times Book Review.”