Let’s Talk: December 2023 Wrap Up + 2024 Reading Goals

Happy New Year, my friends! I hope that the end of 2023 treated you wonderfully and that your 2024 is off to a great start! Since we didn’t get to catch up in December, today will be a December wrap up and a little chat about my reading goals for 2024.

You know the drill, get cozy, grab your favorite treat and let’s chat!

I can’t lie, I definitely lost my reading motivation towards the end of November, so I knew that December would mostly be rereads and that I wouldn’t read a whole lot, which is totally fine! Since reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in November, I have been back to my Hunger Games obsession, so obviously, it was the perfect time to reread and annotate the first book in the series. Originally, my plan was to annotate The Hunger Games in December, Catching Fire in January, and then Mockingjay in February, but guess what? Once I started, I couldn’t put them down, so I ended up rereading and annotating all three in December, and I loved every second of it! It was so great to revisit this story that I really love and get back into annotating, it had been a while since I last sat and annotated anything and I really missed it.

Every year I do a reread of Little Women around Christmas, and I ended my 2023 reading year with that, which always feels so lovely and heartwarming.. I read the first book in the None Shall Sleep series by Ellie Marney, and really enjoyed that (yes, I listened to practically the whole thing while I baked a cake for Christmas Eve) and I’m super excited that my hold on the second book just came through from the library, so I’ll be reading that this month.

In December I read 7 books, and my favorites were:

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (reread & annotation)
• Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (reread & annotation)
• Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (reread & annotation)
• None Shall Sleep by Ellie Marney
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (reread)

Blog posts and vlogs I loved this month:

• One of my favorite things about the end of the year is seeing everyone’s end of the year lists (we all know how much I love a good list!). So obviously, I really loved Michelle’s list of 2023 reads that emotionally wrecked her as well as her top ten favorite reads of 2023. Both lists had some books that I’ve read and loved and others that I’m looking forward to checking out!
• I was honored to be mentioned in Helena’s favorite theatrical experiences of 2023 post, especially since getting to spend time with her and see some shows together was one of the highlights of my year. I always love hearing about the shows that Helena sees and I definitely live vicariously through her, so it was fun to read which ones were her favorites!

My posts this month:

• November Wrap Up
• 2024 Anticipated Releases
• Favorite Reads of 2023

December was a busy, but good month! In the first week of the month I had tech and performances for the production of A Christmas Carol that I directed and the shows went very well! We had auditions and callbacks for the jr. musical that I’ll be stage managing and producing, prep for the day camps that we offer Christmas and New Year’s weeks, shifting into full summer camp prep mode… it was a pretty busy month work wise.

I ended my 2023 theatrical journey on a very high note by seeing the Mamma Mia tour with my mom. We had the absolute best time at the show, my face hurt from smiling for 2.5 hours. I’ve always loved Mamma Mia but that was the first time that I got to see it professionally and I loved every second of it. The cast was fantastic — honestly, one of the best touring casts I’ve seen. I saw the Waitress proshot in theaters and absolutely bawled my eyes out. Waitress is such a special show and to be able to see it filmed professionally, with Sara Bareilles leading the cast, was so magical and I’m so glad that it’ll eventually be available on Prime because I will be watching it constantly!

I did some baking this month too — I made my cast some chocolate cupcakes to celebrate their final show, and while it took a while (I think I ended up making around 36 cupcakes so that every kid, staff/volunteer and my family could have some) it was totally worth it because they turned out delicious and all the kids were very grateful. For Christmas Eve this year I made a hot chocolate cake that was definitely a labor of love because it took a whole night (and most of an audiobook) to get it done, but I was really proud of it and it tasted so good, so I’ll definitely be making that again.

Christmas and New Year’s Eve were relaxed family days and I loved that. The whole year is always so hectic and I really like getting to spend the last holidays of the year with my family. I got a lot of great gifts (including books), ate great food, and got to play some Scrabble (I may have lost the Christmas Eve game but I did win the New Year’s Eve game!).

2023 was a wild ride, but it ended on such a good note. I hope that yours did as well!

And now that 2024 has started, it’s time to turn my attention to my 2024 goals. Truthfully, I set far too ambitious goals in 2023 and then felt like a complete failure when I didn’t accomplish them. I put too much pressure on myself, and then because of my perfectionist and completionist ways, not being unable to achieve those goals left me feeling really bad about myself, and I am not about bringing that energy into 2024. 

So, for 2024 I’m picking fewer goals, and goals that will involve giving myself grace. 

1 — Stop pressuring myself to finish books by a certain time.

I am an incredibly competitive person, which sometimes is a great motivator and other times it’s really detrimental to my mental health. Something that I’ve struggled with is internally competing with others to read books in a certain amount of time. I am a fast reader — I’ve always been and people always comment on it. However, in the last two or so years, I found myself taking that too seriously and berating myself when it takes me longer than a day or two to read a book. This truly is ridiculous — I have a full time job and often work over 8 hours a day/40 hours a week and have a whole life outside of reading. I don’t have to read books in a day or two and I shouldn’t put that pressure on myself! So, in 2024, while I will still be keeping track of the amount of time it takes me to read my books, I’m going to put less importance on that.

2 — Not worry about the number of books that I’m reading every year

Woof, if we’re gonna talk about ways I feel I failed myself in 2023, not hitting my original reading goal is definitely on that list. In 2022 I read 255 books, which far surpassed my goal, so in 2023 I originally challenged myself to read 275 books, thinking that I’d easily hit that goal. Well, life got in the way and I had a busy year, meaning I had less time to read. I was starting to feel really bad about the fact that I was so far behind on my goal come June, and decided to move my goal to 150. While I felt a lot of relief when changing that goal, I did feel pretty disappointed in myself for a while, which is just ridiculous. In 2024, I’m making a point to consistently remind myself that the number of books I read has no bearing on my worth as a reader or content creator, and it’s far more important for me to enjoy the books that I’m reading. That being said, I am still setting my goal for 150 as I know that’s a goal I can consistently hit.

3 — Prioritize my physical TBR

Since we know I love spreadsheets, I decided to finally make the book inventory spreadsheet I’ve been meaning to make for years (I’m so excited about this honestly). Part of why I want to do this is because I want to keep track of which books I own, what special editions I have, and to make sure that the books on my shelves are books that I really enjoy. I also want to have this to help hold me accountable for reading books from my physical TBR. I’m hoping to read at least 2 books from my physical TBR every month.

4 — Go out of my comfort zone

While I absolutely want to make sure that I keep reading genres and things that I love, I do want to challenge myself to go out of my comfort zone and read some genres that I don’t always gravitate to, because you truly never know until you try it, so in 2024 we’re going to be trying new things!

What are your 2024 reading goals? I’d love to hear about things that you’re hoping to accomplish in the year, bookish or not!