Novis Newsletter - December Edition
Hello 2025! Wishing all of you a happy new year, catching you all up on an eventful month and looking back on some highlights from 2024.
Escaping the cold and heading to a dream destination
I started the month off by heading to Egypt for a week-long trip with my family. We spent a couple of days in Cairo before flying to Luxor and boarding a four-night Nile cruise heading south to Aswan. On our first full day, we visited the Pyramids, and the Sphinx and rode camels, which excuse the frat-boy expression, was pretty epic. The Nile cruise brought a change of pace, with temple visits in the mornings and afternoons spent sailing and watching the changing scenery. I also decided to read Death on the Nile on the cruise, which was the best reading experience I’ve ever had, and I did cry a little when we got to visit the hotel where Agatha Christie stayed when she was in Egypt, which is also where the book starts off.
A Taylor Swift Birthday and Christmas
“Happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time” pretty much describes how I feel about turning 22. We got back from Egypt two days before my birthday, and after lots of early mornings, I was happy to have a low-key celebration and went out to dinner with my mom and my brother. We did Christmas Eve at a family friend’s place this year, and it was nice to have kids running around for the holidays and hosted on Christmas Day. I spent the leadup to the holidays baking lots of Christmas cookies (needed to make my New York Times subscription worth it) and eating all the leftovers the days following the celebrations.
New Year, Same Gang
To finish off the year, I’m heading over to the Belgian coast to catch up with High School friends and celebrate the New Year. Though I’m of the opinion that any day can be a fresh start, I’m also taking this time of year to reflect on 2024 and set intentions for 2025.
Best of 2024, December Recs and a Reading Wrapped
As part of our New Year’s celebration, I’ve prepared a power point to cover the past year, so I figured I’d give you some of the highlights. If anyone is interested in every book I read this year (up until the start of December) and how they stack up in a tier list you can check out my reading wrapped here.
As per usual, here are my December recs as well:
To Read - A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
This book has a miles-long trigger warning list, so proceed at your own risk. It was because of this that I took so long to pick this up, but I totally understand the hype, and along with Just Kids it’s one of the best books I read this year, and might make it to favourite book tier. I did physically flinch at some times and had to take multiple breaks to digest what I’d just read, but the writing is beautiful. I’m not usually a fan of extremely long books, but I was glad to spend so much time with the characters. If you do end up picking this up, feel free to live text me updates and reactions as I was also blowing up my friend’s phones to work through this with someone else.
To Watch - Raiders of the Lost Ark
I mean… Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, need I say more? I came back from Egypt feeling both nostalgic and inspired and partly convinced I could have had a successful career as an archaeologist. I also played the theme from Indiana Jones almost every day on the trip, so the subliminal messaging worked with my family and they were all down to have a movie night when we got back.
To Eat (and Bake) - Alison Roman’s Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies
A fairly easy recipe and my family’s favourite of everything I baked this holiday season. The texture is perfect, it’s not too sweet and the flaky salt is essential, do not skimp on it