☕️ The Debrief, Vol. 18
The one written from the highway
I’m coming to you live from I-40. Eli and I are traveling back to Memphis from my firm’s holiday party outside of Nashville. Thankfully, I genuinely enjoy the people I work with, so we had a great time… but why must there be so many holiday events, and why is the holiday season itself so short?
I don’t think there’s a perfect solution, but I do think the fastest way to suck the joy out of the holidays is to cram the calendar so full of events and forced merriment that there’s no time to breathe or enjoy any of it in a meaningful way.
One thing that worked surprisingly well for us this year (and that we’ll absolutely repeat): we mapped out December during Thanksgiving weekend. Every known holiday event, when we’d see Santa, when we’d drive around looking at lights. Everything went on the calendar.
We did our Santa visit and big lights drive early in the month, which was a fun way to kick things off and ensured those plans didn’t get hijacked by last-minute pop-ups—like the “parents are welcome!” holiday party for E’s class on Friday at 10:30 a.m. that we learned about yesterday. Are you kidding me?
I digress. But if you have anything that helps you maintain sanity and actually enjoy the holiday season, I’d love to hear it.
We had our December clubhouse meeting on Wednesday, and the replay is up until next Friday, 12/19. We chatted about favorite things, holiday movies, Jack Black’s sneaky hotness, and all kinds of other nonsense.
If you’ve been curious about The Clubhouse, this is a great time to jump in. When you join, you’ll get access to this month’s replay and be added to our Clubhouse Instagram community, where the conversation continues.
You can upgrade to a monthly or annual membership below. Once you join, send me a DM on Instagram (@heybailey___) so I can add you to our Clubhouse list!
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What's rattling around in my BaileyBrain™, in no particular order:
+ Our community-sourced guide for tights recommendations is live! I grabbed the Hue tights in espresso for the holiday party last night, and they were great.
+ My favorite purchase of 2025 is my Bose Ultra Open Earbuds. My AirPods have been largely neglected since I started wearing my Bose — they let me live my dream life of being able to listen to music or podcasts while out and about or doing things around the house, while also being aware of what’s going on and able to hop into a conversation if needed without pulling out a pod and saying “HUH?” Several colors are on sale.
+ E loves when I use the Hally gem pen on her hair. Easy to use and easy to remove, but the gems stay put. A fun gift idea for the little girls in your orbit if you’re still shopping!
+ Next year, I want to be better about cataloging what I’m reading and listening to. I did better this year logging books, but I’m also a big podcast listener and don’t do a great job keeping up with my favorite episodes. If you have a good system…. what is it? I’m wondering if just a simple iPhone note may be my best bet.
I’m starting to get carsick, so I’ll bid you farewell….. and I’m not proofreading this, so just ignore any typos you came across, please and thank you.
Bailey
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I use Goodreads to document the books I listen to or read! You can follow other people and see what they are reading, shelve books for later, etc. I’ve used it for a few years and it has prevented me from re-reading books that were “meh” (and you remember you read it halfway thru).
One way I keep up with podcasts is to have them in a separate app. While Spotify does have all the podcasts I listen to, I tend to get overwhelmed with all the options on what I can listen to in the Spotify app. For me, podcasts are solely listened to on the Overcast App. I'm very much a mood reader/listener. If I'm in the mood for a podcast I go directly to the Overcast App where I created custom playlists based on my listening moods. New episodes are always downloaded and ready to go without the noise of the algorithm.