Lizzie: The Yuletide Blues are a real thing. Elvis had them. Charlie Brown had them. Tim Allen had them in Christmas With the Kranks and in The Santa Clause (during his custody battle). And that’s why we host holiday parties: to shoo away the blues until New Year’s, at which point we party again.When we last left you, I mentioned that I was planning a tiki-inspired holiday party. The whole thing came to fruition last weekend, minus the fruit tower and the shrimp luge.

The deer in the snow turned away
from my flashlight and kettle
to let me fight with the ice alone.
I was thinking of you then,
of your sleeping head,
of your maskless mouth.
I used to think your heart
was like an old waterway
always locking and filling
up, but it’s not just one thing
—it could be this kettle.
It could be the steam
in the dark. The light
bouncing around the branches
at midnight. Mine might be an ancient
furnace.

This Christmas season, I have been reflecting on the words of my favorite author, C. S. Lewis, who once observed: “I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.”Speaking about American evangelicalism was never my intention.

Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Color Purple, was a serious-minded prestige drama. The film simplified the story but faithfully rendered the book’s emotional weight through Spielberg’s vibrant direction, Quincy Jones’s sweeping score, and a strong ensemble cast.

Editor’s Note: On the last Monday of each month, Lori Gottlieb answers a reader’s question about a problem, big or small. Have a question? Email her at dear.therapist@theatlantic.com.
Don’t want to miss a single column? Sign up to get “Dear Therapist” in your inbox. Dear Therapist,I’m in a new long-distance relationship with a man I was with in our early 20s (we are now 38 and 40). I plan to move out of state to be with him in a few months.

What’s the point, now,
of crying, when you’ve cried
already, he said, as if he’d
never thought, or been told—
and perhaps he hadn’t—
Write down something
that doesn’t have to matter,
that still matters,
to you. Though I didn’t
know it then, those indeed
were the days.

Across the Northeast, forests are haunted by the ghosts of American giants. A little more than a century ago, these woods brimmed with American chestnuts—stately Goliaths that could grow as high as 130 feet tall and more than 10 feet wide. Nicknamed “the redwoods of the East,” some 4 billion American chestnuts dotted the United States’ eastern flank, stretching from the misty coasts of Maine down into the thick humidity of Appalachia.

The Washington, D.C., my sisters and I grew up in was known as Chocolate City for good reason. As Black children in the city then, we were a majority. We sauntered from school to store to home to kickball field, oblivious to our segregation. When I was a tween, and just beginning to be conscious about the giving of gifts, my sisters and I were Christmas shopping at one of the festive pop-up markets in our corner of the city.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Many of the stories our readers spent time with this year revealed a curiosity about the historical events that shaped current circumstances at home and abroad, and a desire to examine humanity’s best and worst impulses. Spend some of your Sunday with 12 don’t-miss stories of the past year.

The sooner President Joe Biden acknowledges that Americans will likely be drawn into a fight to protect shipping traffic through the Suez Canal, the more time the U.S. military has to plan, and the less severe the harm will be to the global economy.