Hello, and Happy New Year’s Eve + 7th Day of Christmas!

We’ve got friends coming over in a few hours for our annual cookie swap, so this will be short. Plus, I’m still on a holiday work break… But I wanted to make sure you got your NYE reflection questions, and I couldn’t just leave you hanging wondering what my favorite [insert random category here] of the year was, could I? 😉

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. This rendition of Ava Maria in a stairwell is hauntingly gorgeous.

2. Luna the horse delivers books in an Indonesian village.

3. How to not care when people don’t like you. It’s not what you think, and there’s wisdom here.

4. Stop confusing habits for routines. Yes and amen to so much of this.

5. And finally, here are my longstanding 20 questions for a New Year’s Eve reflection! It also includes 10 questions for kids, as well as nine questions for your New Year’s Day.

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

• Rereading both Atomic Habits and Domestic Monastery — excellent reads for the start of a new year*.

*If you’re curious here’s a compendium of my favorite books about living well, should that be on your mind as we enter 2022…

Faves of 2021 🏆

Look, I don’t know about you, but these lists sorta stress me out to make. I just know I’m going to forget something. So, some caveats: These are things I enjoyed in 2021; they weren’t necessarily created or released in 2021. Also, naming them as faves doesn’t mean I endorse everything ever created by the person, nor does it mean I’m not cringing to hit publish because I’m sure I’ve forgotten something else I’d either add or replace here. Consider this a did-the-best-that-I-could with this list of superlatives. You’re human, too, so I’m sure you understand.

• Books: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (fiction); Wealth, Poverty, & Politics by Thomas Sowell (non-fiction) — (this last one sounds boring, I know, but it’s not… I read it via audiobook and was riveted).

• Podcasts: Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz; Honestly with Bari Weiss

• Podcast Episodes: Technology, Politics, & Radical Christian Living with Marc Barnes on Pints With Aquinas; Was the Internet a Horrible Mistake? with Jaron Lanier on Honestly

• Album: Blue Flower, by The Gray Havens (minus two songs that I skip)

• Songs: These.

• Social media follow: Joy Clarkson on Twitter

• Newsletters: George Saunders (it’s new but it’s already a favorite!); Claire Swinarski

• App: ReadKit

• Purchase: Fitbit Inspire 2

• Recipes: Keto fish and chips; the easiest lemon curd

• Low-stakes choice: To grow out my pixie into a bob

• Medium-stakes choice: To spend significantly less time on Instagram

• High-stakes choice: To become Catholic

Quotable 💬

“I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.”

— Ransom Riggs #

Elsewhere 📍

Tsh Oxenreider 🎄 @tsh

I want to watch more movies made before I was born (1977). I’ve seen a fair number already, but I want to compile a to-watch list. What are some of your faves?

4:19 AM ∙ Dec 30, 2021

Excellent ideas here in the thread so far! 👆

Question For You to Ponder… 🤔

12 months from today, what will you be glad you started doing now?

Enjoy the next few days, and I’ll see you in 2022!

Merry Christmas + Happy New Year’s Eve,

Tsh