9 tips and tricks to survive shorter days and longer nights
a manifesto on how to thrive in the season of sweatpants
Hi, Sunday Squad!
I’m writing to you this weekend from my sister’s place in Buffalo before we head to the Bills-Chiefs game this afternoon. It’ll be my last game before we transition to playing in a new stadium next year, and with a matchup between Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes on deck, I couldn’t imagine a more exciting game to tailgate and spectate. According to my brother-in-law, “this is THE game of year with two of the best to ever do it..where else would you want to be than right here, right now?” And if you’re not familiar with the cultural relevance of that saying, please watch the below video!!!!
Ohhhhh, and for my WAG afficiandos, no, I’m not holding out much hope that Taylor will be there despite that she actually met Jason Kelce for the first time ever at the Bills-Chiefs playoff game in Buffalo in January 2024. During the July 23rd episode of their New Heights podcast, Jason described that that day saying, “That was a f**king really fun day. This combined with drinking for an entire six hours with Bills Mafia before the game got me real excited. Also the first time I met your girlfriend. So, it was an all timer.”
Back to the WAGs, it’s also worth noting that (actress, singer, and now, wife to Josh Allen) has joined Substack as of last week. I highly recommend checking out her letter, for Friday updates from projects she’s working on, stories from working on film sets, and what she’s watching, wearing, shopping, trying, making, listening to, and inspired by. Her first post last Friday seems to have really drawn a lot of interest from the Substack community!
In other WAG news, the Victoria Beckham interview on Call Her Daddy is not to be missed! And on the note of Sporty Spice™️, last night, I also attended a hockey game before coming home and watching Game 7 of the World Series, all the while learning the lore around Yoshi. What fun!!!! Basically, if you haven’t caught on yet, being in Buffalo is all about drinking and watching sports, and I love that for us.
Looking to next year, the biggest sporting event on my radar is the Winter Games. I had MAJOR regret over not going to the Olympics in Paris last summer and would like to avoid that with the Milano Cortina events that kick off on February 6th!!! Fittingly, I was able to do some deep research for work over the past month on what availability remains for the Olympics and actually sent out a Substack for on the topic on Wednesday (which marked 100 Days until Opening Ceremony). The post with all the deets is linked here in case you, too, are keen to plan a trip to Italy while it’s a winter wonderland set afire by the buzz of the Games!
With the clocks falling back, waking up this morning to an extra hour of sleep helped soothe the blow that the sun is supposed to set here at 5:06p. Being here in Buffalo also helped make me a *little* less sad that I’m not running the NYC Marathon today getting the world’s greatest natural high alongside 50,000 other runners…if you’re new here, I’ve run NY twice and last year, PR-ed by over 20 minutes for a 4:00:48 finish. I truly believe Marathon Sunday is the best day of the year to be a New Yorker and am all kinds of twisted up not to be there, but honestly, if I were home, I’d probably be crying that I wasn’t running, so maybe it’s for the best??
self-care practices post 20+ min NYC Marathon PR
before we get into the fun, this edition of the sunday series is too long for email, so I’d recommend clicking out to read in browser or even better, in the substack app, where you can like and comment!
As we transition into all things darker days with the clocks falling back, I want to acknowledge that readers of The Sunday Series are based across 63 countries (!!), so the concept of ‘Daylight Saving’ going into effect won’t quiteeee be universal, but to my readers in Australia, just know that we envy you. And, I’m coming to see you Aussies in about six weeks for my first trip Down Under, and I CANNOT WAIT to experience summer in December!!!!
For those of us in North America who saw clocks fall back as of 2 a.m. or Europe (the EU turned back the clocks last weekend), we’ve officially entered the season of perpetual dusk. This is the time of year when even the simplest errands require bundling up, and the mere idea of leaving the house after 6 p.m. feels like an act of heroism. It’s the season of canceled plans justified by “it’s dark,” “it’s cold,” or the horrid combination of the two.
Let’s face it: this time of year is known to bring on a general ennui. But if you try to reverse engineer it, there’s also something quietly comforting about this shift—the annual permission slip to slow down.
Today’s edition is, in essence, a survival guide for shorter days and longer nights: how to create light when there’s less of it, warmth when the world feels colder, and joy when energy dips. It’s a reminder for you to light candles before sunset. To romanticize the act of staying in….and if you missed last weekend’s send, you know that I take romanticizing life very seriously!!
How to Romanticize Your Life (according to self-proclaimed experts)
Today’s edition is a collab between Kayla Douglas, editor behind The Sunday Series, and Caylee Ashwell, Chief Dresser Extraordinaire behind extra dressed—book club besties, downtown New York girlies, and lovers of the little things, this special send is intended to help you romanticize your life.
If summer is defined by spontaneity, winter thrives on ritual. The first thing to do when the clocks fall back is to build structure that feels soft—the kind that keeps you grounded but never rigid. This season isn’t punishment; it’s punctuation. Every year, nature forces us to take a collective exhale, and we resist it like toddlers being told it’s bedtime. But maybe this is the point: the world shrinks a little so we can expand inward.
9 Tips & Trips to cope with Daylight Saving and darker days ahead
ONE: Make your morning coffee/matcha feel ceremonial. I set up my coffee maker the night before so that when the alarm goes off, I know all I have to do is put my feet on the floor and press a button to be on the way to that first glorious sip. If time allows, I love to actually sit to drink it versus sip while rushing around.
TWO: Embody the summer bodies are made in the winter mentality. As someone who really let their workout routine fall apart through the summer, I feel the effects now. But as a reframe to these next few months, I’m aiming to use them as a reset…I’ve been booking my workouts weeks in advance and sticking to doing 6:30a strength classes at least four times per week. It’s truly a kick in the ass, but in the best possible way.
THREE: On the note of summer bodies, winter is the time to embark on your more invasive beauty treatments. Last November, I started my laser hair removal journey with Thérapie Clinic (Europe’s Number 1 Med-Spa, highly recommend), and I’m still very much in the process! It takes well over a year to treat any area with laser for hair removal and lots of restrictions around sun exposure, so, if you’re interested in having that process on its way by next summer, I’d start NOW. I also am on a vein removal journey, but very much still in the thick of it, so no further updates there other than damn, what a pain. On the more “fun” side, I’m very interested in building on my monthly facial and medical-grade skincare routine with some more intense treatments. More to come!!!!
FOUR: Make a point to enjoy sweater season. This is easier said than done when it’s March and we’ve been working with the same rotation of knits for five months, but I always try to remind myself at that time of year how much more I actually prefer winter dressing to summer dressing (I SAID WHAT I SAID) and this year, my goal is to keep the excitement I feel in November for layering up.
FIVE: Sink into that stack of cookbooks. I looooooove the idea of following a recipe, but rarely actually do it. I’m a huge creature of habit when it comes to grocery shopping, often getting the same staples over and over. But my goal this winter is to get into more creative cooking and planning ahead by shopping to make recipes—particularly out of ’s latest cookbook, my fave recipes from , and the ones in ’s upcoming cookbook (out in a couple weeks!).
SIX: Create a wind-down routine that signals to your body that darkness doesn’t equal depletion. When it comes to bedtime, I know I feel my best when I don’t spend those precious post-work hours buried behind a screen. I’m going to make an effort to make dinner reservations on the earlier side and in turn, be home and ready for bed by 9p! I aim to have at least thirty minutes of reading to lull me to sleep.
SEVEN: Speaking of books, now is prime time to dip your toe into fantasy! While I write a lot about reading, you don’t often see me talking about the realm of fantasy. Last year around this time, I read Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros and I actually did really get into it. I’m planning to dive back into Iron Flame and Onyx Storm now that it’s cozy weather and I feel I can take on these longer titles!!
EIGHT: Put your phone across the room to charge overnight so your first glance in the morning is out the window, not into a screen. I’m still figuring out how to sever the tendency to doom scroll at night, but the biggest step seems to be getting the phone into another room. This also ensures I have to GET UP to turn off my alarm, which let’s be honest, is the biggest battle when it comes to repeatedly snoozing.
NINE: Let yourself hibernate without guilt. Productivity looks different when daylight does too. And as much as I relish having hangs with girlfriends on the calendar, my goal in this season is really to do less and spend more time getting in touch with myself.
What rituals do you swear by to make it through winter? Let me know in the comments! xKD
Just love these ideas! I love this time of year so much.
Sunlight alarm clock was a huge change for me. While I'm still not a morning person it helped me so much having a warm light slowly get brighter for 10 minutes before the alarm went off, then my room is already semi bright and instead of a ring I set the radio function as an alarm so I'd wake up to music. Bonus these clocks also have a Sunset function that you can set from 5-30 minutes where it gets gradually darker into that low orange before it turns off completely. This helps my body calm down and get into sleeping mode so much - perfect when reading in bed.