#57: Year-end highlights

Say ta-ta to 2024 with a nice send-off

Well, folks, it’s been another year of Snail Mail Sweethearts, and I am happy as ever to be here with you all.

I know the holiday season wrings some people out, but I love it. From Halloween on through to Rhody and I’s respective Aquarius birthdays, October to February is one Festapalooza of decorations, baked goods, gratitude, and gift giving. And while, yeah, I probably love it as much as I do because I don’t have children, so my holiday season largely involves wearing oversized sweaters while catching up on books and art projects and video games, it’s also a nice season because it’s a chance to be grateful for the year that’s passing and to scheme (dream) for the year ahead.

A childfree holiday season becomes a choice. If I don’t get into the spirit and decorate your house or make hot cocoa¹ or build a gingerbread house, December will brush past you like any other month. Without the pressure of both society and children’s expectations, festivity becomes an active choice, not a passive thing done to us².

And these past few years, I do choose to love it, and I go ham on decorations. But it wasn’t always the case. In the past, to say the holidays depressed me would be like saying the pressure of deep ocean feels like a hug. December to January I lurched along with a big fat coal for a heart; Christmas 2010 was the last day I saw my dad alive before he died suddenly a month later³. One year at a karaoke bar, as soon as the clock struck midnight, everyone all kissing and clinking plastic champagne flutes, I cried so hard my friend had to carry me to back to the car and take me home.

These past few years, though, I bust out my ugliest sweater on December 1st, and the only crying I do is during Rhody and I’s annual rewatch of White Christmas, ideally while munching on my mom’s retro-ass peanut sittin’ pretties recipe. And because of those painful holiday seasons before, I savor every damn bite.

All that to say… I hope your December is as authentically kind and gentle as mine. I am so very grateful to be here now. And today, I looked back at Snail Mail Sweethearts and rounded up some faves for you to revisit while you’re slacking off at work/waiting for your metro/avoiding doing laundry.

Enjoy!

RHODY AND I ADOPTED RABBITS. They are wonderful terrors. World, meet Anthony Hopkins and Gretchen. Anthony weighs all of 3 pounds and is convinced he’s Gretchen’s father, despite her being only 4 months old and already bigger than him. Prepare for an embarrassing amount of rabbit photos.

📚 2024’s most popular nonfiction

🤠 2024’s most popular fiction

And 2024’s It-may-not-have-won-a-popularity-contest-but-hot-dang-I-enjoyed-it series

The nonfiction:

The fiction:

I loved researching Fernando Pessoa two months in a row this past spring, but what about y’all? What was your favorite topic or short story this year?

Keep an eye out for voting time in just ten days! I’ve got some cool things up my sleeve for y’all :).

Til then - all my love and postcards mailed to Memory Lane,

Nikita, your Snail Mail Sweetheart

1. OK, OK, I make hot cocoa literally all year round, but you get my drift.

2. No shade on having kids, of course.

3. As always, a plug for International Suicide Hotlines. People love you and want to uplift you!