With Christmas exactly one month away, and our neighbourhood's lighting ceremony on Thursday evening, one can't help but get a little caught up in all the holiday excitement. Here are a few things on our list, from the kinds of pieces that feel made for this in-between moment of the year, when November is slipping quietly toward winter and everything seems to slow under the softer light.
WE SENT our Holiday Wishes to subscribers before Christmas and shared a quick update of life lately on Christmas Eve. While this note was meant for Christmas Day itself, we think the warmth of the season still lingers enough for a day-late greeting.
The Virtuous Circle of a Happy Personality A few weeks ago, I wrote about happiness and music but didn’t mention perhaps the most famously joyful work ever written: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, composed in 1824, which ends with the famous anthem “Ode to Joy,” based on Friedrich Schiller’s poem “An die Freude.”
The art of gifting lies in finding those special pieces that feel both thoughtful and unexpected. As the holiday season approaches, we've curated two carefully considered gift guides—one for the men in your life, and another featuring elevated essentials for yourself or those close to you.
It isn’t every day that psychologists identify a hot new character archetype. Human design doesn’t usually generate media stories about “the most-talked-about personality trait for autumn/winter”. And yet, something close to this is unfolding with the current fascination with so-called “dark empaths”.
TIME HAS a strange way of stretching and compressing these days. After missing last week's Weekend Links, it feels like an eternity has passed—the days bleeding into one another like mascara in the rain.
IT'S TURNED DARK and chilly and wet suddenly, and everywhere, I'm reading that September is everyone's favourite month. It's definitely not mine, but the closer we get to winter, the more I give in to the cosiness of the changing seasons and let myself begin looking forward to the holidays, which, amazingly, is less than three months away already.