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. (It was really quite difficult, veering on impossible, to find a full-body pineapple in Brooklyn in December). Maybe this festive update, for you, is highly anticipated. Perhaps you’ve been waiting, breath bated, to hear how it all turned out. Well, you can unbate.

Kaitlyn: I hate to say this, but I think Lizzie might have been suffering from some kind of pineapple-specific vision problem. The first four grocery stores I went to in search of star fruit, which I wanted for a recipe called “star-fruit chips,” had an obscene number of whole pineapples, which I didn’t want because I was sure that Liz already had the pineapple aspect of the event covered. I distinctly remember feeling kind of taunted by them. Lizzie and I live in the same neighborhood and probably went to the same grocery stores. So my guess is that she was looking a little too hard. One of those “right in front of your nose” things. Like when you stare at the Wordle for two hours on a day when the answer is “THEIR.” Happens to all of us!

Anyway, the fifth store I went to had just one single star fruit mixed in with the kumquats, and this was only the beginning of my problems getting ready for a party that I wasn’t hosting and had no real stake in. After standing in the corner by the yogurts for a while to think, I bought the lone star fruit, two kiwis, a pear, a mango, and a small bucket of plantain chips. I figured I could make a variety of fruit chips and then mix them in with the professionally made plantain chips to create something really impressive and delicious.

At home, I first attempted a recipe for “Whipped Mai Tai Jell-O” from the book The Great Gelatin Revival. The recipe was weird, because it said to boil the alcohol, but I wanted the alcohol to stay (and, later, enter people’s bloodstreams). So I skipped that step. The recipe also called for homemade almond milk, which I ignored, opting for store-bought. To get the mixture to set, the recipe instructed me to, as the name implies, whip it while holding the bowl aloft in an ice bath. This did not work at all (duh). Instead, I put the mixture in plastic shot glasses and put them in the freezer for a while.

Of course, the star-fruit-chip recipe worked for the star fruit but not for any of the other fruits, which had to be thrown in the trash after sitting in the oven for four hours and getting brown but not dry. The paltry 15 star-fruit chips I ended up with went into the Jell-O shots as garnishes. I thought, What could possibly go wrong next? Well, while watching Paddington 2, Nathan and I accidentally ate all of the plantain chips, so I had to send him out for a last-second bag of classic Lays. [Deep breath] No matter what happens, you can always bring classic Lays.

Santa at the beach at Lizzie's house! (Courtesy of Kaitlyn Tiffany)

Lizzie: The pineapple thing … I need a psychologist’s opinion on that. Would you believe me if I said we started our party prep three weeks prior to the big day? I can’t in good conscience recommend it. I cleaned the fridge. I scrubbed a wall. Matt spent many hours crafting paper lampshades to hang over our recessed lights and giant paper flowers to hide the parts of the ceiling where it leaks when it rains.

We had initially planned a menu of mini hot dogs, sliders with caramelized onions, pineapple upside-down cupcakes, and coconut shrimp, but once I realized that we had no savory vegetarian options, I added a cheese ball and cheesy garlic knots into the mix. Matt batched a cocktail called the Jungle Bird (rum, Campari, pineapple juice, lime, and simple syrup). We also had Ghia and a pineapple-flavored THC drink for the sober and plant-curious among us.

If I had to do it over again, I would’ve refreshed the snacks more often. I think our cheese ball ran out of Ritz accompaniments, and our freezer is still full of shrimp.

Kaitlyn: Speaking of ceiling leaks, I need to share something amazing we heard in the fourth meeting of the dinner-party course Liz and I have been taking. One woman, during the show-and-tell portion of the class, explained that her house is extremely structurally unsound. Among other problems, she said, there is a huge hole in the kitchen floor, and to get around it, you have to go down a flight of stairs into the basement and then up another flight on the other side. Before the house is gutted, whenever that day comes, she wants to throw a cave-themed dinner party for which she fills the place with geodes and candles and paper-mache boulders. “Honestly, if my house is falling apart, I might not have money to have an elaborate dinner, but when the fuck else am I going to be able to have an empty house that has a fucked-up design?” she said. Now, that is a truly enviable attitude to carry into 2024. That’s what I’m talking about!

I somehow lost a star-fruit garnish on the two-block walk to Lizzie’s house. But my spirits rose dramatically when we arrived. Christmas in July in December … As we walked in, our jaws hit the floor.

The decorations that Matt made were so, so good—if Jimmy Buffett (RIP) had been present, he would have fainted. Or moved right in! I always love being in Lizzie’s apartment, but the space was looking extra beautiful because of the lanterns, the flowers, and Matt and Lizzie’s enormous tinsel-covered Christmas tree. We all complained for a minute about the wild, possibly illegal pricing of trees this year in Brooklyn, but we quickly concluded that any reasonable person would pay basically as much as they could possibly afford in order to have one. I mean, at what point would it not be worth it? It smells fantastic and is so good for morale.

Re: the coconut shrimp, I’d be happy to go over later in the week to have some.

Lizzie: Imagine a party where the only food is coconut shrimp …

I think there were close to 30 people in my apartment at the party’s peak. People came from as far afield as Philadelphia, New Jersey, and the Upper East Side. There was even one guy who I’m not totally convinced knew anyone at all. He said he was the plus-one of someone who had been planning to attend but was no longer coming. He showed up with a giant backpack that I’m guessing weighed at least 40 pounds, and when I showed him where to put his coat, he kept saying, “Thank you for being so hospitable.” But what was I supposed to do? Not let a stranger with a giant backpack into my house?

You know the John Early and Kate Berlant short Rachel? It was kind of like that, except less thrilling, because he eventually just left without much fanfare.

Kaitlyn: Lizzie and Matt just got a new buzzer—one of those where the person inside the apartment can look at a live video feed of the person outside. The lighting on the stoop is really flattering and makes everybody look hot and famous on the screen. So, for a while, I was hanging out in the kitchen and ogling people, then buzzing them in.

I was also talking to Colin about Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen. He had only seen the movie, and I had only read the book. I asked if Eileen is obsessed with her bowels in the movie, and he said no. I was like, well, then, what even happens? (I read the book a long time ago, but I remember her talking about pooping basically the whole time.) I guess I may have buzzed in a mysterious backpack person during that conversation, but I don’t think so.

I did have the honor of buzzing in Colin—not the Colin I was already talking to, but the Colin who lives in New Jersey and knew Lizzie as a child. I told him his pink floral shirt was great, and he said, “It’s my grandmother’s.” The two Colins met because of a confusing moment when I said “Colin” to one and the other thought I was talking about him. Shortly after this, Stephanie saw Michelle walk by and said, “Wait … is that … ?” She didn’t know Lizzie had a twin! If the theme of the night hadn’t been “tiki bar,” it would have been “doppelgängers.”

These paper lanterns were made by hand... by just one man, Matt. (Courtesy of Kaitlyn Tiffany)

Lizzie: Doppelgängers, party crashers … Here’s another trend report from the party: the J.Crew 1988 Heritage Cotton Rollneck™ sweater. Brandon was wearing it, and he received multiple compliments throughout the night. The man-in-a-turtleneck look can go House of Gucci fast, but the roll neck keeps it off the ski slopes, if you know what I mean.

And another: Reindeer Ring Toss. It’s a party game that consists of inflatable antlers that you wear on your head and inflatable rings that your teammate (or opponent?) attempts to throw onto your antlers. It’s actually more challenging than it sounds, because all of your props are essentially slightly heftier balloons. Have you ever tried to throw a balloon with any sort of specificity or target in mind? They want nothing to do with you! They just want to float around without accomplishing anything besides half-heartedly defying gravity.

Kaitlyn: The game looked incredibly hard. I was too intimidated to even try it. But throughout the evening, I did manage to sample most of the snacks. The sliders were better than anything I’ve eaten all year and, unlike every other dinner I’ve had in New York, didn’t cost $70. I ate two. I could have had, conservatively, six. I also had some wontons with spicy mustard, some hot-chocolate-flavored Hershey’s Kisses, and a few cheesy garlic balls. Plus punch, which I spilled on the rug after only a few sips. That’s one of the worst things that can happen at a party—seeming drunk and doing something a drunk person would do, but really you were just being clumsy. Luckily, Stephanie poured half a seltzer on the stain and dabbed it right up.

People kept asking what was in the Jell-O shots because they were a stupid color and tasted like rum and nothing else. Eventually, I started pretending I didn’t know anything about them.

Lizzie: I actually liked that the Jell-O shots were an off-putting off-white color, but Kaitlyn’s right: They really tasted mostly of alcohol, and I don’t think I finished mine.

Here’s a question for the group: Is it a mood killer to tidy during a party? I feel like once the cups and cans start to pile up on random surfaces, you gotta do something about it. Otherwise it feels like soaking in bath water a little too long—time to pull the plug. Speaking of cans, how can we, as a society, prevent the one-last-sip-in-the-can thing from happening? Why aren’t you all finishing that last, warm, flat sip?

Kaitlyn: Around the time that Lizzie began tidying, I guess I was starting to get actually drunk, because I asked five or six people if we could be the first to sit down on the floor and just kind of get that started—“no more standing.”

Russell sat next to me and Lori, and started to talk to us about The Power Broker. He said he has a bone to pick with Robert Caro, because there wasn’t anything about Jane Jacobs in the book. We told him that Robert Caro did write a chapter about Jane Jacobs—as you, reader, may know—and it was cut from the book, because the book was so long that it was going to be literally too large to be bound as a single volume if something didn’t get scrapped. I mean, rebutting this complaint was child’s play for us.

He then said that there should at least have been a chapter about Robert Moses picking a fight and losing. We said, please, Russell, there are chapters about that! I love Russell, but he was being very antagonistic. I lost my voice while talking to him because I had to talk so loud.

Lizzie: I lost my voice too. I realized that once one person starts talking a little louder, everyone needs to talk louder and louder, until we’re basically all screaming to be heard over the noise that we as a group have created. I even turned the music all the way down to combat the noise issue, but it didn’t help. Maybe I need to talk to my landlord about the apartment’s acoustics.

I wish I could remember more of what happened, but the truth is, it’s all kind of a blur. I swear, it wasn’t too much eggnog; it was hosting. Hosting goes straight to my head.

I hope everyone had fun. If you were hoping for a shrimp luge, I can only say: Maybe in the future.

Kaitlyn: Speaking of fun and the future, we should mention that this will be the last issue of Famous People published in The Atlantic. This is it, and we’ve had a ball!

You can keep up with us elsewhere if you’d like, and please continue inviting us to parties. Ideally, we would like to go to the Met Gala.

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.

’Tis the season of Taylor Swift. Maybe you’re sick of her, or maybe you’re obsessed. Either way, you are likely finding yourself in the middle of a Girl Culture moment. But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

The 10 best films of 2023 The hybrid-car dilemma If Trump Wins: Trump isn’t bluffing.

Girlhood’s Big Year

After Thanksgiving dinner, as my family members were settling in around the television for our annual football nap, a picture of a certain blond pop star floated across the screen. “Taylor Swift is so stupid,” a relative groaned. “Just show the game!”

I was surprised. Not by the comment itself—that’s typical uncle behavior—but because he was, shockingly, the first man in my life to express disgust about Taylor Swift’s recent ubiquity. Many of my guy friends have danced in the crowd at the Eras Tour. They have sent me silly social-media memes of Travis Kelce and Taylor, because my friends know I love their coupledom. For weeks, my father has been thrilled to answer all of my questions about “bye weeks” and “tight ends.” These men are not threatened by Taylor’s domination of the NFL. They love her! And I love them!

On that November afternoon, the realization hit me suddenly, even though the signs, and media reports, have been there for months: We are in the boom times of Girl Culture—brought forth, in part, by the incandescent glow of Taylor Swift’s torch.

Girl Culture is the art and media that values and communicates girls’ perspectives, according to Elizabeth Scala, an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Girl Culture has always been a Thing. (See: Clueless, and Jane Austen.) But in the past 10 years, Scala says, it has seeped into the mainstream in a new way: Swift’s Eras Tour, Beyoncé’s Renaissance, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. But also: hot-girl walks. Girl dinners. Taylor Swift is on ESPN now. It’s impossible to look away.

These days, professors at numerous U.S. colleges are teaching classes about Taylor Swift’s music and entrepreneurship. Last year, Scala became one of the first, designing a course in which students analyze song structure alongside famous literature. Scala wants her students to be able to speak intelligently and objectively about Swift’s work, she told me. In Shakespeare’s sonnets, for example, three quatrains, or units of four lines, are usually followed by a couplet turn, which summarizes or questions the earlier lines. Scala gets her students to care about sonnet structure by showing them that “Taylor Swift is doing something very similar in moving from lyrics to chorus, and then the bridge is where she’s making the turn.” And, as all Swifties know, Taylor can write a bridge.

In my college friend group, liking Taylor Swift wasn’t cool. It was “girly,” which meant it was vapid. So when 1989 came out, instead of shouting the lyrics to “Out of the Woods,” I was watching boys play video games and pretending to love Arcade Fire. Lots of Taylor fans have stories like this. So does Swift, and that’s part of her success.

A lot of Swift’s music is about women giving their feelings and experiences the credence they deserve. “All Too Well” is a good example, Scala notes. The song is about a red scarf and an autumn romance, ostensibly with Jake Gyllenhaal, but it’s also an angry reaction to the notion that an important relationship was all in her head. “Taylor gets to come back and say, No, you don’t get to tell me this wasn’t real. I was there. It was rare; I remember it,” Scala told me. Like all of Taylor’s songs, “All Too Well” offers Taylor’s Version of a life event, and that version is often much more compelling—and richer in detail and sneaky Easter eggs—than a narrative that most intermediaries could provide. So compelling, in fact, that Swift has made some celebrity-profile writers wonder whether she even needs them anymore.

Even as I welcome the acceptance of girl culture with open, eager arms, a clarification is in order: Appreciating Girl Culture doesn’t mean being uncritical of it. You are free to dislike Barbie, for example, because you found America Ferrera’s monologue on feminism way too on the nose. You can be obsessed with Lena Dunham’s HBO show, Girls, while acknowledging that it becomes virtually unwatchable after Season 4. Similarly, just because Taylor Swift communicates an arresting narrative doesn’t mean that journalists—or even fans—have to accept it as truth.

In his Person of the Year interview with Swift for Time, Sam Lansky points out that, despite Swift’s assertions, no one actually canceled Swift in 2016—during a public feud with Kanye West and his then-wife, Kim Kardashian—or took her career away. But then Lansky immediately negates this important point by shrugging his shoulders and writing, “Who am I to challenge it, if that’s how she felt?” Can you imagine if all journalists treated their subjects so credulously?

Of course, the power of Swift’s feelings has always been her great strength. The tiny, specific details of her life—of all of our lives—are how she’s come to dominate Girl Culture.

Thinking back, my family member’s Thanksgiving comment sounded strange because it was almost vintage. A tedious throwback to a time, albeit not that long ago, when it was socially acceptable to openly belittle the things that women like. Not anymore. We are in the “girlies” era now. Saying that in 2012 might have felt cheesy. Today, it feels metal as hell.

Related:

Taylor Swift’s Tinder masterpiece Justice for the teenage Taylor Swift

Today’s News

According to law-enforcement officials, a former college professor who had applied for a position at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas is suspected of shooting four people on its campus yesterday. A judge in Texas ruled that a woman whose fetus has a lethal abnormality may terminate her pregnancy despite the state’s abortion laws. Representative Jamaal Bowman was censured by the House for pulling a fire alarm in a Capitol Hill building in September; Bowman claims that it was an accident.

Dispatches

Time-Travel Thursdays: The diamond industry achieved what is arguably the most successful corporate-marketing campaign of all time, Amanda Mull writes. Up for Debate: How much time did you spend with peers in adolescence, and what effect did that have on the rest of your life? Conor Friedersdorf asks readers.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Contributor / Getty

The Sanctions Against Russia Are Starting to Work

By Leon Aron

Now that Russian President Vladimir Putin finds himself in a war of attrition, his only chance at victory depends on outlasting both Ukraine and its military supporters. He isn’t merely counting on the demoralization of the Ukrainian people and on “Ukraine fatigue” in the West; he’s also assuming that his own country has the stamina for a long and brutal fight. Yet after nearly two years in which Putin has largely succeeded in insulating most of his subjects from the war, the effects of Western sanctions—coupled with the astronomical and growing human and monetary costs of the conflict—are finally beginning to cause pain for the Russian general public.

Immediately after the invasion of Ukraine early last year, when the United States, the European Union, and other democratic nations moved to disconnect Russia from global financial and trade networks, many Western commentators hoped that the country’s economy would quickly buckle, creating pressure on Putin to withdraw. That hasn’t happened.

Read the full article.

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Listen. In the latest episode of Radio Atlantic, Hanna Rosin talks with Tim Alberta about the alliance between Trump and evangelicals.

Watch. May December (streaming on Netflix) lets its characters be more than cartoons.

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P.S.

Caity Weaver, who is one of the best magazine writers working today, recently wrote an utterly charming profile of Stephanie Courtney—the actress and comedian you might recognize as Flo from the Progressive insurance commercials. The story is goofy and silly and also, somehow, extremely deep.

— Elaine

Katherine Hu contributed to this newsletter.

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