There is something about this time of year that makes me — and, it seems, a lot of other people — dream of being elsewhere. Here in New York City, on the eve of Christmas, the trees are bare and lack the compensating beauty of snow. The sky is unremittingly gray (when it’s not actually raining). The sun goes down at 4:30 in the afternoon. (Raise your hand if Noah Kahan’s sad-in-Vermont “Stick Season” resonates with you, too.)
When it comes to vacationing in the winter months, I think the world roughly divides into halves. There are the people who embrace a vision that involves snow and ice and seeing their breath when they step outside. And there are those who want to spend the day in their bathing suit and feel the warm sun on their shoulders. As The Times’s Travel editor, I feel a responsibility to both those groups. I personally might not dream of booking passage with 6,999 other people on the biggest cruise ship ever to launch, but there are those who do.
Special winter travel sections are something of a tradition for the Travel desk, and over the last few weeks, we’ve published two collections of articles filled with inspiration and advice. One was dedicated to readers who want to run toward the cold, and the other focused on those who want to escape it.
You may never book any of these trips, but I think one of the wonderful things about travel writing is that it lets us imagine all the lives we might have. I read our articles and fantasize: Maybe I am a person who spends Christmas in Vienna, ice skating under trees filled with twinkling lights and pausing to drink mulled wine. Or someone who checks into a fancy treehouse at a Vermont resort (a snowy one, not a sad one) and curls up with a book by the fireplace. Or who goes backcountry skiing in Colorado, climbing up and over mountain passes, then descending through fields of untracked snow.
Or maybe I’m lying under a pink-and-white striped beach umbrella at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki, mai tai in hand, or riding a mustang through the high-desert landscape of Joshua Tree in California, or sitting on a cliff in Puerto Rico with a stunning view of the cobalt water below, listening to the waves echo off the rocks.
Of course, in this fantasy world, my flights are never delayed by snowstorms or grounded by computer glitches. In the real world, 2023 was a year filled with travel chaos. I hope that those of you who are traveling this holiday are able to remain in that fantasy bubble. If not, our latest Tripped Up column looks back on the year’s travel mishaps and offers advice on how to avoid them in 2024.
NEWS
Israel-Hamas War
The day Hamas came: See a reconstruction of events in Be’eri, the Israeli village that experienced the worst bloodshed on Oct. 7.
Israel’s military said it would send more troops underground to destroy tunnels below Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
The Houthis, an Iran-backed militia, has been targeting ships in the Red Sea. But the U.S. is hesitant to strike back in Yemen partly because officials are worried about a wider conflict.
Anti-government protests, rare since the war, have returned to Israeli streets.
Bethlehem typically has extravagant Christmas festivities. This year, it’s a city in mourning.
International
Vladimir Putin has signaled that he is open to a cease-fire in Ukraine, officials said.
Fuel prices are up 60 percent under Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei.
Persistent conflicts and key elections across the world could add volatility to the global economy in 2024.
Politics
Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court justice, has built a network of former clerks who wield influence in universities, law firms and government.
Lawyers for Donald Trump asked an appeals court to toss a federal indictment accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election on presidential-immunity grounds.
Ron DeSantis had an ambitious, expensive field operation. Read how it sputtered.
Other Big Stories
Researchers used ChatGPT to extract people’s contact information, showing that the chatbot’s privacy restrictions can be bypassed.
Substack said it would not ban Nazi symbols or extremist speech on the platform.
A man with developmental disabilities involuntarily confessed to a murder. He spent more than 16 years in prison, and settled a wrongful conviction lawsuit for nearly $12 million.
Laura Lynch, a co-founder of the Dixie Chicks, died in a car crash at 65.
FROM OPINION
In this Opinion video, readers both young and old share their thoughts on loneliness.
“A profound failure of discipleship”: Beth Moore, an evangelical writer, talks to Nicholas Kristof about Christianity.
If Hamas frees the hostages, Israel should drop its unrealistic war goals and withdraw from Gaza, Thomas Friedman writes.
The sheer amount of plagiarism in the case of Claudine Gay, Harvard’s president, means that she should resign, John McWhorter argues.
The Sunday question: Should Trump be barred from the ballot?
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits any insurrectionist from taking up federal office, making the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision a clear application of the law, CNN’s John Avlon writes: “The court can’t credibly pretend that the Constitution does not say what it clearly says.” But when the country still disagrees on whether Trump is an insurrectionist at all, keeping him off the ballot “could put democracy at more risk rather than less,” Samuel Moyn writes for Times Opinion.
MORNING READS
The art of craft: Jasmine Rae de Lung’s striking cake creations are as much about process as they are about the final product.
Grand opera: Can Anita Rachvelishvili, the mezzo-soprano who has struggled with vocal problems since her pregnancy, get her voice back?
What lies below: An archaeological expedition in Mexico seeks what’s left of the sprawling catacombs hidden underneath “the Vatican of the Zapotecs.”
Science: The DNA of an Antarctic octopus is helping researchers understand the dangers of climate change.
“Home Alone 2”: The Manhattan brownstone in which Kevin McCallister (purportedly) took on the Wet Bandits is for sale.
Vows: They’ve known each other since the 1970s and had great marriages. Their decision to start a relationship surprised them more than it surprised friends.
Lives Lived: Giovanni Anselmo was an artist of many mediums who used a vast array of materials, including stone, paint, piles of earth and even lettuce, to provoke thought and wonder. He died at 89.
TALK | FROM THE TIMES MAGAZINE
One of my favorite interviews was with the great cellist and humanitarian Yo-Yo Ma. I thought some of Ma’s ideas about connecting with other people were worth revisiting at this time of the year.
Your work is rooted in the idea of music as a value-positive, ennobling thing. But music is also used in every possible awful context. Can we delineate music from the intentions of the people using it?
Music connects human beings. It brings people together. So a marching band will energize an athletic game or bring people to war. The bagpipe is used for war, for entertainment, for funerals, for weddings. Music is not one thing. It’s something that people react to. But your question — “Is that good or bad?” — it depends on circumstances and individuals and timing.
How do you think about the specific environment in which you’re playing music?
As a performer, my job is to make the listener the most important person in the room. The only way to avoid burnout is to care about where you are. Being present. Caring. You’re working with living material. That goes back to memory. The living material is only living if it is memorable. Not only that it’s memorable but that you pass it on. That is what I’m thinking about with every single interaction. Whether it’s a kid, someone on the street, in a concert hall or with you, David. It’s the same thing: How to be present. Because if you’re not?
Then why are we here?
That’s it. You are acknowledging someone’s existence by being present. It may take a lot more energy, but boy, is it much more rewarding. It makes me happy. It makes people happy. It’s wonderful.
Read more of the interview here.
More from the magazine
HBO’s three-part docuseries on the cult of Mother God pulls from an astonishing wealth of content created by the group itself.
Decades after leaving drug hustling behind, why did an author seek out the man who had drawn him into that world?
What does it mean to be a Palestinian in this new era of war and displacement? In Jordan, a sprawling diaspora looks toward Gaza.
BOOKS
A quiz: It’s been 400 years since “The First Folio,” a landmark collection of Shakespeare’s plays, was published. How much do you know about it?
Our editors’ picks: “Happy,” a debut novel about a Punjabi farmer who moves to Italy, and eight other books.
Times best sellers: Rebecca Yarros remains in the top two spots on the combined e-book and print fiction best seller with “Fourth Wing” and “Iron Flame.”
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …
Listen to podcasts about scams and con artists.
Make canapés like a professional chef.
Order a last-minute Christmas gift.
THE WEEK AHEAD
What to Watch For
Tomorrow is Christmas Day.
A commission in Turkey is expected to meet on Tuesday to consider Sweden’s NATO membership bid.
What to Cook This Week
The recipes in Emily Weinstein’s latest Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter are a mix of her own favorites and readers’ picks. Try baked Greek shrimp with tomatoes and feta. One reader recommended skillet chicken with mushrooms and caramelized onions, saying, “My whole family loved it.” And the ricotta pasta alla vodka can easily be made vegetarian.
NOW TIME TO PLAY
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was chlorophyll.
And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku and Connections.
Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times.
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