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Hi friends!

How are you?? I am quite literally counting the days until my holiday break from work. I like everyone I work with very much, but two glorious weeks away from Slack and Google Calendar? Two weeks with no spreadsheets? Two weeks with no meetings?! I’m so ready. If you see me out and about this weekend, do not even ask me what I do for a living, that’s how little I want to think about work during this time.

Right now I have a stick of butter softening on my kitchen counter in preparation for making these chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies which I’ve been making for no less than 10 years. They’re a little fussy (it’s a Martha recipe, after all), and you have to set aside at least two hours to chill the dough, but boy, are they worth it. You would not believe how well chewy gingerbread, made with spices and real ginger, goes with semisweet chocolate. I skip the part where you roll the cookies in granulated sugar, because I don’t think they need it. The only problem is that I always have to figure out how to give at least half of them away, because my mom also sends me a Tupperware full of homemade cookies every Christmas, and if I don’t give some out, it’s cookie overload. Festive problems, am I right?

Believe it or not, we’ve reached the end of my Best of the Year series for 2025! Today, I’m getting into all my personal bests and worsts of 2025, from the most fun movie I saw to my biggest regret. I’ll also recap how I did on my resolutions for 2025, share some accomplishments that weren’t on my resolution list, as well as my personal predictions for what will be In & Out next year (and a look back at what I said would be In & Out for 2025—eep!).

Shall we get started?

Like You Know Whatever Presents: The Very Best of 2025

As I’ve said before, this year really tried me, but I’m still here, bitch!! Here is my list of the very best (and some worst) new-to-me things I tried in 2025. You can find last year’s list here, and all my best-of content for 2022-2025 here.

Favorite Outfit: My cosmic floral magic suit from Nooworks ($183) This was my birthday gift to myself this year. It’s soo comfy and colorful.

Favorite Shoes: Stevie Lace-Up Combat Boots from Torrid ($39.95). Combat boots are a neutral, they go with everything.

Best New-To-Me L.A. Restaurant: Kobawoo. The bossam was insane.

Best New-To-Me Non-L.A. Restaurant: Night Kitchen in Berlin, Germany. So many courses!

Best Meal: De Kas in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I mean, it’s got a Michelin star.

Best Snack: I finally started listening to my nutritionist who says that snacks should always aim to hit multiple macros (fat, protein, carb), so snack of the year goes to A Babybel And A Handful Of Pretzels.

Best Noodle: Orecchiette

Best Cocktail: My friend Cristina always makes amazing tequila cocktails. She made me one that really hit the spot when I was crashing with her during the L.A. fires, I think it had guava nectar in it?

Drunkest Night: The night we went to see Kylie Minogue

Best Trip: Berlin, Hamburg, and Amsterdam

Best Boat Ride: A canal boat cruise in Amsterdam

Best Art Exhibit: Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968 at the MOCA (since closed, sadly)

Best Book: Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe ($17.70)

Best Song: “Boy Crazy” by Kesha (video is NSFW)

Best Album: Period. by Kesha

Best App: I played a lottt of Two Dots.

Worst App: TikTok overwhelms me, and I got so sick of the ban drama this year.

Worst Day: That first day during the L.A. fires when my power was out and I had to flee my apartment with my cat.

Best Day: I actually had a lot of fun on the Fourth of July this year despite not feeling patriotic at all! We grilled and had drinks on my friend Jason’s roof.

Best Live Show: Beverly Hills is incredible if you can catch it.

Best Concert: Kylie Minogue

Best Live Comedy Show: We finally made it to Jon Gabrus’s Thanksgiving Power Hour this year, and it was a lot of fun!

Best Movie: One Battle After Another

Worst Movie: Jingle Bell Heist (Netflix). Horrible, and had barely any heist in it!

Scariest Movie: Weapons (HBO Max)

Most Fun Movie: Weapons (HBO Max)

Best TV Show: The Four Seasons (Netflix)

Horniest TV Show: The Hunting Wives (Netflix)

Best Comedy TV Show: The Chair Company (HBO Max)

Best Reality Competition TV: Top Chef, season 22 (Bravo, Peacock)

Best Dating Reality TV: Love Is Blind UK, season two (Netflix). The one with the guy who was obsessed with his spleen.

Best Housewives Reality TV: Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, season six (Bravo, Peacock)

Biggest Splurge: Taking a 10-day trip to Europe, although it wasn’t as bad as you might think. We paid for our airline tickets in miles, and Germany is surprisingly affordable. Still, definitely the biggest chunk of money we dropped this year!

Best Money Spent: We hired a cleaning service a few times this year and they did a fantastic job.

Worst Money Spent: I finally unsubscribed from Ipsy/Boxycharm a couple months ago. I feel like they were just sending me a lot of random crap I didn’t need or want.

Biggest Win: I got to work on some really cool projects at work this year, like Confession Hole!

Biggest Fail: Not being more prepared for the L.A. fires. It all worked out, but jeez.

Biggest Regret: Working too much and not spending more quality time with my peoples.♥️

Most Grateful For: My husband, my health, my family’s health, financial and employment stability in an uncertain economic climate

A Resolution Recap

Every year, I make a bunch of resolutions, and every year, I do… some of them. Let’s take a look back at all the things I wanted to do at the start of 2025, and see how I did:

1. “Max out my retirement accounts by the end of the year.” I contributed to my 401(k) all year to the percentage at which my employer matches, but I did not max out my Roth IRA. That’s a no.

2. “Have at least $10,000 in my personal savings by the end of the year.” Um, no. LOL I wish! Maybe next year!

3. “Build and invest in my community more.” I did a decent amount of donating and writing my reps to help my community this year, but when I came up with this resolution, I think I was picturing contributing more than that. That’s a nope.

4. “Go to at least three concerts and three comedy shows this year.” I did this, and exactly this! Three concerts and three comedy shows! Wish it were more, but hey, that counts!

5. “Build time for creative writing into my schedule. To make this measurable, let’s start with an hour a week.” Man, I don’t know. I wrote my newsletter, but I didn’t do a lot of creative writing this year.

6. “Take at least 30 minutes for lunch three days a week.” I think, if we averaged out the whole year, I may have done this? It’s hard to say. I’ll count it as a yes.

7. “Learn more about something new, whether that’s studying Spanish or researching Van Gogh or learning more about wine.” Interestingly enough, I did both study Spanish AND research Van Gogh this year! I also studied German for a few months on Duolingo. I’m counting this.

8. “Travel outside of the United States at least once. Ideally, as much as possible, lol.” Once counts!!

9. “Read 25 books in 2025, why the hell not? And let’s say they can be any kind of books.” Nope! I read 12 books this year: seven romance, two thrillers, two literary fiction, and one memoir. (You can see all the books and follow me on Goodreads here.) Should I lower my reading goal in the future?

10. “On average, spend at least one day of every weekend with friends.” I wish I could say I did this! Ugh.

Wow, only 4/10, not great! But then, this was a pretty not-great year. Should I even bother making…

Resolutions for 2026:

1. Start a new creative project.

2. Read 15 books in 2026.

3. Travel outside of California at least three times.

4. Try at least three new restaurants in L.A.

5. Do a major closet purge and makeup declutter.

6. Visit three museums or art exhibits.

7. See three concerts and three comedy shows.

8. Buy three new pieces of art.

9. Cook or bake something ambitious I’ve never made before.

10. Go away somewhere for a long weekend trip.

Accomplishments

Even though I may not have completed all my resolutions for this year (or even most), I still did a lot of living. Here are some things I did this year that weren’t on my resolutions list:

- Visited two new countries for the first time

- Went to VidCon for the first time

- Saw Oh, Mary! with the original cast

- Went to the movies more than last year

- Saw Kylie Minogue and Linkin Park live

- Went to the beach

- Went to Disneyland with my niece and nephew

- Spent time with friends and their kiddos

- Spent time with family

- Cooked a lot of new things, despite being very busy

- Worked on big projects at work for Lenovo, GMC, YouTube, and others

- Went to the Van Gogh museum and got to see Sunflowers, The Bedroom, and Almond Blossom in person!!

- Learned some German and some Spanish

- Had more fun playing with makeup

- Celebrated 10 years of living in L.A. (!!)

- Celebrated nine years of being married to the best person

- Kept going during a very challenging time for my country and city

- Logged 333 hours in Balatro

In & Out

Last year’s predictions for 2025’s In & Out:

OUT:

- Eyeshadow palettes

- Lying about being on Ozempic

- Big elaborate weddings

- Vow renewals

- Stilettos

- Fast fashion

- Flannel

- Pharmaceuticals

- Himbo/bimbo culture

- Eating red meat

- TikTok

- Dating

- Comedy chat podcasts

- Calling Trump “45”

IN:

- Adult bar/bat/b’nai mitzvahs

- Combining leather and lace in an outfit

- Thrifting

- Chunky heels

- Getting married at the courthouse & having a chill party

- Memoirs about fucked up childhoods

- Smoking opium

- Lookalike contests

- Town square culture

- Going vegetarian/vegan for environmental reasons

- Cats

- YouTube

- Rewatching Mad Men and Breaking Bad

- Celibacy

- Not taking shit from men

Looking back: I’ll be honest, I don’t really know where my head was at when I made this list, lol. I think I was making predictions rather than looking at what I actually wanted to be in or out. I think I was right about people becoming more open about being on GLP-1s, and ya don’t really hear anyone calling Trump “45” anymore. No idea where I came up with opium being “in,” though. That’s definitely not something I’ve personally encountered this year.

Here’s my…

In & Out for 2026

OUT:

- Glorifying E.D. culture

- Bad Republican makeup

- Brands doing fucked up shit and not expecting backlash for it

- Workaholism

- Luxury for the sake of luxury

- Matching couple outfits

- Revisionist history

- Poppy seed bagels

- A lack of curiosity about the world

- Awards show Ozempic jokes

- White (Idc what Pantone says)

- Movies about events that literally just happened

- The U.S. tourism industry, sadly

IN:

- Woke

- Gender neutral bathrooms

- Going to the movies

- Gourmet hot dogs

- DINKs

- Pinks

- Perimenopause

- PTO

- Work/life balance

- Letting people be who they are

- Going to Las Vegas (for Americans)

- Making art for art’s sake

- Comedy

***

That’s it! We did it! Thanks for sticking with me to the bitter end of this bitter year. It was rough, but we got through it together, and I believe we can make it through the next one, too. I truly do appreciate each and every one of you who takes the time to read these newsletters, whether you’ve been here for years or just got here today, especially those of you who comment and reply! Speaking of which…

If you have a second, I’d love it if you’d like or comment on this post–just click this link to go to the post page. This post is public, so feel free to share it on social media, or forward it to a friend.

I’ll likely not write to you again until the new year, so…

Until next time—have a very happy holiday, and a wonderful new year!

Love,

Liz

XOXO