Not So Fast
Weekend Reads v. 20.12.2025
This week was barreling along at a nice and steady pace, inching closer and closer to the holidays, when out of nowhere I had a seriously intense encounter with someone I know fairly well. This isn’t someone who sits on the front row of my life, but it is someone with whom I interact quite a bit during this season of my life.
I’ll spare you the gory details (and spare my heart beat from racing as a result of recalling the event), but I will say I was pretty darn proud of how quickly I snapped myself out of the bumpy wake of this event. I don’t know about you, but it is hard for me to shake off an intensely unkind encounter, even if that encounter is in a parking lot with a stranger. So to be able to quickly change the channel from the-day-has-been-ruined-by-an-intense-angry-person to let’s-move-right-along was a bit of a milestone for me.
I think I was able to lower the thermostat, so to speak, because I quickly realized this individual is a joy robber. I have a feeling you have these characters in your life, too. While they can come into our lives in a variety of shapes and forms, the aftermath is always the same. In one moment, you feel joyful about something and then in a snap that joyful feeling is tarnished by the joy robber’s words or actions. Sometimes that tarnishing comes from a deflating remark or a quip made in jest while other times the robbing may be more dramatic, showing up in the form of a tantrum of epic proportions, brimming with nasty behavior like projecting one’s own self loathing onto you. Joy robber. It doesn’t matter if the motivation is insecurity, isolation, jealousy, or just plain ol’ meanness, the title sticks because your joy has been taken from you and replaced with some heavy mix of anxiety, fear, and sadness.
This time of year, it seems joy robbers abound. Classic holiday stories like Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and Dr. Suess’ “The Grinch” document how this dreadful villain has lurked the halls of holiday cheer throughout history. Who knows why these villains abound amongst the twinkle lights of December. Maybe some people are allergic to holiday cheer. Or maybe it’s the way the holidays can mark a loss or a longing in a profoundly painful way that brings out the absolute worst in some individuals.
And yet, these Grinches and Ebeneezer Scrooges in our lives don’t have to wreck the show. No, they do not! A simple change of perspective can help usher us away from the prospect of being robbed of our joy and steer us to a place of keeping our joy.
I don’t know who the Scrooges are in your life, but I hope you are able to insulate yourself a bit this holiday season from the prospect of having your joy deflated. Maybe you and I can make a pact to say, “Not so fast,” when our Scrooges start doing their nasty work, and recognize the hurtful or undermining comments being hurled our way are likely the result of their own sadness and not at all related to you or me.
Joy feels hard to come by these days. Let’s cling to the joy we have and say, “Bah humbug!” to those joy robbers who cross our paths!
This rare sight of a mother polar bear adopting a cub might just make your day. (WaPo gift link)
Apparently a team of researchers read last week’s post on having a little bit of awe from time to time, because this week I found this study on how finding awe in everyday life will improve your life.
How pretty are these Meyer Lemon stamps? They apparently come in a roll of 3,000!
Will someone please make this cranberry orange spice cake and let me know how it is?
There is something about this poem that encapsulates what I’d like my 2026 to feel like. Simple, straightforward, and full of small pleasures.
Does anyone out there have holiday decoration guilt from still needing to deck your halls? The tree is up in my house (and it’s real!). It’s adorned with lights, but to be totally up front with you I ran out of steam before attempting to put the ornaments. At first we thought we’d lean into the slow Christmas thing, but now I’m wondering if I should just power through and put up the ornaments. Am I overthinking this? Absolutely! Do I feel an odd sense of guilt? You betchya!
For the record, I’ve always loved a paper chain as decor for the holidays.
If you tend to run cold, maybe this very affordable heated floor mat would be a good addition to your office space?
This essay on how modern culture may be stagnated was interesting to me. It certainly does feel like art is stuck at the moment – how many sequels and spinoffs must we endure? The author wonders if we are stuck because we are so comfortable and are less deviant these days:
“My favorite recent piece on our cultural stagnation is Adam Mastroianni’s “The Decline of Deviance.” Mastroianni points out that complaints about cultural stagnation (despite already feeling old and worn) are actually pretty new:
‘I’ve spent a long time studying people’s complaints from the past, and while I’ve seen plenty of gripes about how culture has become stupid, I haven’t seen many people complaining that it’s become stagnant. In fact, you can find lots of people in the past worrying that there’s too much new stuff.’
He hypothesizes cultural stagnation is driven by a decline of deviancy:
‘[People are] also less likely to smoke, have sex, or get in a fight, less likely to abuse painkillers, and less likely to do meth, ecstasy, hallucinogens, inhalants, and heroin. (Don’t kids vape now instead of smoking? No: vaping also declined from 2015 to 2023.) Weed peaked in the late 90s, when almost 50% of high schoolers reported that they had toked up at least once. Now that number is down to 30%. Kids these days are even more likely to use their seatbelts.’
Mastroianni’s explanation is that the weirdos and freaks who actually move culture forward with new music and books and movies and genres of art have disappeared, potentially because life is just so comfortable and high-quality now that it nudges people against risk-taking.” (Source)
The five tastiest spots for food at gas stations around the world. Which reminds me, have you seen Stanley Tucci uncover the deliciousness that exists in Italy’s Autogrills? Fascinating and delicious. All on the side of the motorway!
These are the book covers The New York Times thinks were the best of 2025. Some of them are really cool. (NYT gift link)
Here’s to a wonderful third weekend in my favorite month!