🎇 January: I Want Your Midnights...
...but I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day
Dear Reader,
Hello 2024! Happy New Year’s Day and welcome to the first official Dear Reader Newsletter!
In this newsletter you’ll find:
Swiftie January Dates - important dates to keep track of this month, including the anniversary of January single releases, some Swift family birthdays, and the last Chiefs game of the regular season (before the playoffs begin).
My January Swiftie Playlist - specifically curated to accompany your January; plus links to my Winter Swiftie Playlist.
My Featured Mashup for the month - two links to a new mashup I’ve been working on, plus a round-up of the top 10 mashups I shared in 2023.
My Featured Recipe for the month: Welcome to New York 1989 Bagels - including a link to the recipe on my blog, and a YouTube video showing how I made them.
Plus some 2023 Wrap-Up Content, to celebrate the past year - it really was an incredible one for Taylor Swift and for Swifties!
Swiftie January Dates
January is the last full month before the Eras Tour starts back up again and I feel a bit like we’re in the calm before the storm - if storms included livestreams to watch and a Rep TV announcement to look forward to.
As there’s not as many events going on, I decided to add the anniversary dates of Taylor Swift’s single releases to my Swiftie January Dates calendar! I normally stick to the anniversary of album releases, but the singles released in past Januarys are pretty epic, so I hope you enjoy those additions.
We’re also got some Swift family birthdays to celebrate in January! Andrea Swift, affectionately known as “Mama Swift”, has her birthday on the 10th. And after missing two out of Taylor’s three cats’ birthdays in my previous two Swiftie Calendars - Meredith’s on Nov 10th and Benjamin’s on Dec 18th - I knew I couldn’t make that mistake again. So you’ll see Olivia Benson’s birthday is on the 23rd!
Last month I included the dates of the Chiefs’ games, in the hopes that Taylor might attend some of them. She ended up going to them all! She even brought her family to the Christmas Day game, and last night she finished off 2023 in the stands cheering on Travis to a New Year’s Eve win for the Chiefs! If, like me, you also love seeing Taylor supporting Travis at his games, I included the Chiefs’ last game of the regular NFL season. With last night’s win they clinched their spot in the playoffs - so there will be more games to come, but that schedule is TBD.
January Swiftie Playlist
The theme for my January Swiftie Playlist is new beginnings - which seemed quite appropriate for the start of a new year. To me, every song represents its own new beginning.
Figuring out the flow of this playlist was an interesting process. I knew I wanted to start with New Year’s Day. It is, after all, what kicks off January. I also wanted to end with …Ready For It. I’m clowning for a Reputation announcement in February, so ending the month with …Ready For It just feels right. But I’m fully aware that flips the opening and closing songs of the Reputation album and I wasn’t quite sure if it would work.
I played around with different orders, and the final result is what feels best to me and my ear! My hope is that it captures some of those feelings of beginning new chapters, exploring new territories, and ultimately taking on the new year.
You can listen on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and YouTube. I also have started creating clean versions of my playlists, for those with little ones around and/or who just prefer listening to those versions. I began that with my Winter Playlist, and a number of you really appreciated that option, so from now on I’ll make them! You can listen to the clean version on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon.
As I mentioned, I also shared my Winter Playlist last month - and I’ve been listening to it on repeat since! It was quite a process to create (I’ll share more about it soon), but just know I was thorough 😅 I hope you’ll feel like the effort paid off. Every song that I deemed to be a ‘winter’ song is on this Winter Playlist, organized into 5 stand-alone playlists that progressively take you through the season.
Winter can be a time of sadness and reflection, and this Winter playlist conveys that. But I tried to balance it out with brighter songs of hope and love. If you listen to the whole thing through it’ll take you on a journey of ups and downs, but hopefully will leave you feeling warm and satisfied by the end. Feel free to also listen on shuffle. Here’s the links to the playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and YouTube - plus the clean versions on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon.
Click here for links to all of my playlists!
Featured Mashup
I wanted to share my full-length mashup of Say Don’t Go, Clean and All You Had To Do Was Stay, but unfortunately every time I upload it gets taken down. I’m going to keep trying/am also exploring other ways I might be able to share it with you (if you have any ideas, please let me know!). In the meantime, here are the two clips I shared on Instagram, in case you missed them:
If you enjoy my mashups, I thought you might also appreciate this post of my Top Ten Mashups of 2023! These are the mashups you all enjoyed the most this year, and they’re some of my top faves as well. It was fun to take a trip down memory lane and listen to the very first mashups I ever made, back in July when Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) came out. Hopefully you’ll see a progression as you swipe through, as I’ve been learning and improving over the months. Creating mashups is now one of my favorite things to do, and I’m excited to share many more with you in 2024!
Featured Recipe: Welcome To New York 1989 Bagels
This newsletter is coming to you on New Year’s Day, so I figured the recipe needed to fit that theme.
Now there are two Taylor Swift songs I have long associated with New Year’s. One is New Year’s Day - for obvious reasons.
The other is Welcome To New York. I think because I have such vivid memories of watching Taylor Swift opening her New Year’s Rockin’ Eve performance in 2015 with it. I remember thinking how meaningful it must have been for her to perform it in the heart of New York City as we all waited for the ball to drop and begin the new year.
New York City is famous for their bagels. So I decided to make 1989-themed bagels! My family is obsessed with homemade sourdough bagels - I make them almost weekly, just in normal spherical shapes. But I can confirm that when they’re shaped like 1989, and you’re eating them listening to Welcome To New York (Taylor’s Version), the experience is even better.
Here’s the recipe for these sourdough Welcome to New York bagels on my blog. Plus I put together a YouTube video showing you the process of how I made them too!
2023 Wrap-Up
It has been quite a year - for Taylor Swift, and for us as Swifties! I honestly cannot believe how much music and fun Taylor gave us all year long. It felt like she constantly dropped new things for us to discover, listen to, watch, discover, puzzle over (a couple of times literally!), and more.
I would say it’s impossible to completely recap Taylor Swift’s year - but I compiled some highlights for you!
Here’s a link to a round-up of all the music and performances (I could think of!) that Taylor Swift put out in 2023:
And here’s a link to all of the awards, achievements and records Taylor Swift won/broke in 2023:
Finally, I’m sure you’ve seen recap posts of 2023 highlights all over your social media - you may have even posted one yourself! I know we’re now into 2024, but if you still want to reminisce about the past year, and are looking for a Taylor Swift audio to do so, I made one! Here’s my own 2023 Recap (Taylor’s Version), including a mashup I made using @sammylev’s classic intro and some Taylor Swift songs, of course.
I had the time of my life sharing Swiftie memories with you in 2023, and can’t wait to see what 2024 brings 🫶 Are you ready for it?!
Thanks for reading this New Year’s Day issue of Dear Reader! The next one will go out on January 13th - and it’ll look a little different. You can expect a round-up of news, clowning, and some fun curated content that I think you’ll appreciate. In the meantime…
Hold on to the memories (they will hold on to you),
Bekah