Closing arguments

Last weekend I went to see the string quartet Ethel perform a reimagining of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” including some new “seasons” by modern composers. Hearing familiar music with new additions — a keyboard player and a drummer joined in, there were EDM beats at one point — was exciting. It felt like a jazz performance, riffs on familiar motifs, exciting digressions. That’s sort of what the holiday season is: an established and well-loved format that we improvise on each year. Going out for dinner instead of the usual roast at home? Handmade presents only? How are we noodling on the holidays this time?

Today is my second-favorite Morning of the year, wherein I get to relay to you all your favorite things from the past 12 months. (My favorite Morning is next week, when I bring you the best advice readers received this year.) Thank you to everyone who sent in their idiosyncratic, genre-nonspecific bests of 2025. Hopefully you’ll find the recommendations below as creative and delightful as I did. (Last year’s is here.)

Some of my own highlights: The best new-to-me cocktail that gave me a use for the bottle of Chartreuse I’ve had sitting unopened for years was the Last Word. The film that I can’t stop thinking about is Julia Loktev’s “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow.” The best change I made to my routine was adding mouthwash between flossing and brushing. The show that reliably got me out of a bad mood was the weird Tim Robinson comedy “The Chair Company.” The best thing I started doing that scared me at first was cutting back my leggy, overgrown plants. The film characters I most wanted to be friends with were the leads played by Eva Victor and Naomi Ackie in “Sorry, Baby.” The best art experience I had was Christian Marclay’s “The Clock” at MoMA.

The best stuff you did

The best use of the library is to check out board games, says Liz Schutz from Phoenix. She could never justify buying pricier games like Catan without trying them first.

Stephanie Emiliani of North Tonawanda, N.Y., recommends making cookies at 8 p.m. “just because you can.” There are so many things we should be doing for that very reason!

The best date that Kathryn Sorrells of Denver had with her husband was staying up until 2 a.m. making a playlist of the top 100 songs of their lifetime. “It felt like an urgent and important project,” she said, comparing it to how everything felt when she was in her 20s (she’s in her 50s now). I want that playlist!

The best vacation Mia Morgante from Milwaukee took this year involved her book club “pretending to be sickly Victorian ladies taking a season rest cure in Cape Cod.”

The best habit Chelsey Ryskalczyk from Seattle accidentally invented was sitting in her car for five minutes before going inside. She calls it “meditation with seat warmers.”

And the best decision Michael Hirschhorn of New York City made this year was “calling her and telling her I wanted to be with her.”

Your best in culture

Best chord progression: “Loud” by Olivia Dean. — Kaylee Ellis, Boston

Best unsolicited musical performance: The pair (one saxophonist, one trumpeter) who play jazz inside the 86th Street Q stop on select evenings. — Sarah Freeman, New York City

Best sentence that provided perspective: “To want something with sufficient fervor is to want it beyond the possibility of ever getting enough of it,” from “All Things Are Too Small” by Becca Rothfeld. — Nicole Sparacino, Madison, Wis.

The best piece of classical music written by a heavy metal guitarist: “Dystopia Symphony,” piano version by Miyako Watanabe. — Charles Hsu, San Francisco

Best way to wind down: Put on a Chet Baker record and sip on a spritz. — Madeleine Breza, Denver

Your best changes to routines

Victoria Xavier, of Caxias do Sul, Brazil, now waits until the next day to reply to messages received after 10 p.m. “It’s a game changer,” she says.

Doing chair yoga via Zoom with her two sisters every weekend is Tica Martin of St. Augustine, Fla.’s best new ritual. She admitted they spend most of the time “exercising their mouths.”

Agathe Galtung of Oslo started making large batches of homemade granola. “I had never thought of myself as that kind of person,” she said. But it’s given her “a surprising amount of joy and stability.”

The most effective way Leslie Mignault of Providence, R.I., has found to keep her mood up in winter is to go for regular bike rides. She prescribes “two pair pants, two pair socks, three tops, good gloves, a windbreaker, and a helmet liner, as much of it in merino wool as you can manage.”

Even more bests

Best way to build community: Become a regular somewhere. anywhere! Bar, coffee shop, library — for me, it’s my local running store. — Eve Vanagas, Minneapolis

Best new tradition: Use Black Friday through Cyber Monday as “Unsubscribe Weekend,” since every company that has your info will email or text you. — Sam Friedlander, Los Angeles

Best moment of acceptance: Realizing that trying to get away with things by being cute works better for my cats than it does for me. — Ellen Peters, Sun Prairie, Wis.

Best cookie advice: Toast the sugar, swap extract for vanilla powder or paste, brown the butter, and use good chocolate that you chop yourself. The results justify the effort. — Noah Werthaiser, Ashland, Ore.

Best self-care: Getting TSA PreCheck! — Margaret Roberts, Kodiak, Alaska

Best overheard sentence: “The thing is, it took us four days to realize the dog spoke only Italian.” — Lucia Kanter St. Amour, San Francisco

Best parlor game invented accidentally: “UnGoogleable.” Each person tries to describe something without using its actual function. (“It’s the tiny wet cave where thoughts echo.” → “A sink??”) — Julie Essenberg, Montague, Mich.

Best moment of wonder: Seeing the northern lights in our own backyard in suburban Philadelphia (after trekking all the way to northern Sweden to see them in 2020). — Marianne Miserandino, Abington, Pa.

Best scene I’ve encountered on my 11 p.m. walk home from work: A deer circling and scratching the ground like a dog before lying down to sleep. — Jorja Hegner, Pittsburgh

Best name for a moth: Police Car Moth (Gnophaela vermiculata). — Jane Dykas, McCall, Idaho

Best way to get out of a conversation: “I’ll leave you to it!” — Megan Rounsaville, Bethesda, Md.

Best way to say sorry: Giving “clean” apologies. State exactly what you’re sorry for, no more, no less, and what you’ll do differently in the future. — Emily Wasserman, Portland, Maine

Best way to keep mischievous kids in line: Change a friend or family member’s name and profile picture to Santa Claus in your phone. When your little darlings are acting up, simply call “Santa” (or better yet, text and ask him to call you). Hold the phone up for the kids to see who’s on the line, and watch their eyes widen and their behavior immediately improve. — Laura LaGrone, Asheville, N.C.

Epstein Files

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Pastina soup

Amid all the celebratory feasting that goes on this time of year, it’s usually the simplest dishes I crave most: bowls of pastas and soups — or, even better, the two of them together in Lidey Heuck’s pastina soup. Adding a Parmesan rind to the pot results in a full-flavored broth in which to cook tiny pastina pasta, which gets soft and porridge-like next to the bits of carrot, onion and celery. It’s a gentle, fortifying and comforting thing that both satisfies and soothes.

The Hunt: After several years in Europe, a young family set out to find a home near Dallas with a big kitchen and plenty of room for guests. Which one did they choose? Play our game.

What you get for $1.85 million: An A-frame in Whitefish, Mont., an Arts and Crafts-style close to Lake Michigan, and a home from 1910 near the Kennebunk River in Maine.

Demanding guests: Kindred, a home-swapping app, accepts only half of those who apply to join the platform.

TikTok’s Bill Nye: Can science win on social media? Ask Dr. Noc.

Fashion chatter: “Emily in Paris” moved to Rome, but a prestigious award and a new book show how the series left a stylish mark on Paris.

Courtroom attire: Luigi Mangione, the man accused of assassinating UnitedHealthcare’s C.E.O., has begun wearing suits to his pretrial hearings. Our fashion critic explains the strategy behind the look.

MAGA intellectuals: “Furious Minds,” by Laura K. Field, traces the ascendancy of hard-right thinkers shaping American politics.

The best last-minute gifts

If you’ve procrastinated on holiday shopping, you are not alone. And you are definitely not doomed. Wirecutter’s gift experts have gathered a wide array of pleasing and practical last-minute gifts that can either be sent to loved ones’ inboxes (how about a MasterClass credit or a subscription for superb cinema on demand?) or delivered straight to their doorsteps in two days or less. And if you’re really panicking, enter the supermarket — as in, you should literally visit your local supermarket. We have found that the aisles tend to be stocked with some surprisingly gift-worthy, Wirecutter-approved delights.

Texas A&M vs. Kentucky, women’s volleyball final: Texas A&M has been rolling through the March Madness-style tournament that decides the N.C.A.A. volleyball champion. The Aggies reached the Final Four by upsetting Nebraska, a No. 1 seed and a volleyball powerhouse, which had not lost a single match all season. Then, on Thursday, they took down another No. 1 seed, Pitt. One team stands in the way of A&M’s first national title: Kentucky, yet another No. 1 seed, which enters this championship on a 27-match winning streak.

Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern on ABC