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Our Favorite Things From 2025

The things readers and I loved the most this year.

Alisha Ramos

Dec 31

∙

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Today’s post is exclusively for my paid subs. If you recently upgraded, THANK YOU and welcome.

What are your plans for New Year’s? We’re doing the same thing we do every year: ordering Chinese with our family, hanging out in our sweats, celebrating my husband (shout out to any other NYE birthday babies!), watching whatever bad NYE programming is on TV, and letting the kids stay up as late as they want. Last year, we put on a “PJ Fashion Show.” We’ll see if it gets a reprise this year…

Last week, I sent out an end-of-year reader survey, and a few hundred of you replied. To round out the year, I thought it would be fun to have a group huddle and reflect on our “best of the best” from the year.

Today’s letter is equal parts entertaining and thoughtful, and really captures the range of taste, curiosity, and life stages that make this readership what it is. Your “lessons learned this year” especially gave me pause and some good food for thought. Thank you to everyone who took the time to reply

Thanks for spending some of your downtime with me this year. I’ll be back next week with a “look forward” on what to expect from Downtime in 2026, as I’ve had loads of ideas and reflections percolating. Happy new year!

xo,
Alisha

The Most Popular Downtime Letters in 2025 Were…

By likes and views: A good mix of books, recommendations, and practical advice:

And My Personal Favorite Downtime Letters Were…

A review of Audition by Katie Kitamura. One of my goals for next year is to share more in-depth book reviews and recs with you.
An interview with Jessie Randall, founder of Loeffler Randall. Chock full of creative offline inspiration from a crafty queen with the most charming taste.
A very good reading list for winter. Crowdsourced from fellow writers and Downtime readers. I put so many of these on my winter TBR. You all have excellent taste.
An interview with author Carley Fortune. This was my second foray into conducting an international photoshoot for original content and reporting for Downtime (the first was with author Nikki May). Carley and her books are so beloved, so it was a joy to work with her on this.
My baby registry essentials. A bit random, but this was a much-requested piece, so I’m glad it’s been helpful for so many of you becoming parents. Having the hindsight of one baby and another on the way helped me hone down this list to what I genuinely think are MVP products.
How to style a few fall essentials. My 2025 will forever be known as “the year I tried out style content and burned out a little bit.” Next year will be about less quantity, more quality when it comes to any style writing. Regardless, I’m glad this piece was practical and helpful to so many of you!

DOWNTIME 2025 SUPERLATIVES!

Here’s what we collectively loved and learned this year…

“The best book I read this year was…”...

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