5 Quick Things, #120 ✨
Icelandic book floods, magical elephants, Twelfth Night parties, and more...
Hey there,
Even though it’s an ordinary quiet morning right now, just my coffee, my dog, and me, it’s a rather unassuming milestone day around here. This morning, we’ve published the final episode of Simple, the podcast I’ve run in some iteration since 2011 (that’s back when we were podcasting with CB radio and morse code). I share my full thoughts in that episode, how it’s both bittersweet and energizing for me… today I’m taking a few minutes today to stop, acknowledge what this means, and toast all the years of listeners with a hearty thank you.
If that’s you, thank you — truly. I’m very grateful for sharing part of your time with me every week! Onward and upward.
5 Quick Things ☕️
1. Here’s that episode of Simple… I hope you enjoy. 💛
2. It’s December 20 today, yet you still have time to order gifts online! Here are my suggestions for thoughtful, not-last-minute Christmas gifts for littles, tweens, teens, bibliophiles, and more.
3. Crystal gives us some fantastic book recommendations, and has thusly increased my TBR list tenfold (as though that was needed).
4. “To be like Mary was to read like Mary.” This is lovely.
5. Every year I re-read this, about Iceland’s Jolablokaflod, and every year I make a promise we’ll do it next Christmas Eve. Well, this year I think we’re finally gonna do it.
Quotable 💬
"Let us receive [good tidings], you and I, with the same simplicity and humility as those shepherds did. The more simple and humble, the more poor and detached from ourselves, the more full of troubles and problems we are, the more bewildering life’s ways, all the more must we look up to the skies and hear the great news: ‘A Savior is born to you.’"
- Oscar Romero
Time Machine ⏰
Two years ago, Jerusalem Greer wrote an introductory 101 on keeping the 12 days of Christmas. (Remember, Christmas doesn’t end on December 25, it begins!)
Next week I’m slowing down to enjoy the holidays, so there’ll be no new issue of 5 Quick Things... I’ll see you in the first week of the New Year, starting something new for you.
I hope your start to Christmas is magical!
xo, Tsh
p.s. A little reminder that whenever you order any last-minute gifts here, you’re helping support my work. It truly does help, so thank you.