How One Atlantic Editor Is Spending Her Holidays This Year – The Atlantic

My evenings will be spent on one of the worlds smallest private islands: my bed, which is fitted with sheets that came recommended by a very good podcast I listen to on my way to work at The Atlantics riverfront offices in the historic Watergate complex. The building, as my esteemed D.C. colleagues well know, is home to a number of interesting fauna such as Mus musculus and Peromyscus leucopus.

What will you be packing?

Plenty of warm pajamas that can double as daywear if you throw an oversize H&M sweater on top. Scarves that can also serve as blanketsor as cloth napkins, for impromptu but classy couch-snackingin a pinch. One of my favorite things to do is to wear sweatpants. They are comfortable for sleeping, and also for not sleeping, if you feel like doing that for some reason.

I never travel without at least six different kinds of snacks and at least six different kinds of medicine (antianxiety, anti-nausea, antidiarrheal, anti-pain, anti-heartburn, anticold virus). And my AirPods, which I am terrified of losing and havent quite figured out how to clean properly.

What are you most looking forward to?

Relinquishing any responsibility for myself and putting my physical, spiritual, and mental well-being in the hands of the Peloton bike my very feminist husband got me for Christmas.

Only joking! Ill be relinquishing any responsibility for myself and putting my physical, spiritual, and mental well-being in the hands of the avant-garde burlesque fever dream that is Tom Hoopers Cats. It means I will start 2020 off as the best version of myself: a person who has seen Tom Hoopers Cats.

What do you hope to open on Christmas Day?

My ongoing project to convert my home into a BTS shrine, much to the chagrin of my husband, requires the addition of life-size cutouts of all of the Korean groups seven members. Haha, just kidding ... (Unless ...?)

Also welcome are weighted blankets, fluffy socks, candles, and new novels that Ive heard a lot of great things about and will definitely add to my Goodreads list ASAP. As every culture editor knows, a staggering tower of Books I Need to Read but Havent Yet Because Ive Been Staring at My Phone All Night is the best bedside-table accessory in the world.

How do you relax?

I am a year-round sufferer of severe eczema on my hands, which turn into dinosaur paws in the dry winter air. So I plan to take advantage of the downtime to really indulge in every possible treatment in my toolkit: from daily soaks in colloidal oatmeal cream, to topical corticosteroid-ointment application followed by swaddling my poor mitts in breathable white cotton gloves. Relief is scant; the itching, flaking, and cracking is plentiful. Such is life.

What are you wearing on Christmas day?

I've been dying to wear this floor-length, haute couture black gown made of human hair and a pair of one-of-a-kind earrings, which are made entirely from found objects like old baby teeth and shards of glass.

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How One Atlantic Editor Is Spending Her Holidays This Year - The Atlantic