Happy holidays!

We’re so excited to share our top finds of 2025 with you. These gadgets, recipes, shows, and products made our year a little bit brighter—and we hope you’ll find something that brings you joy this holiday season and beyond!

Our Top 5 of 2025

  1. Pizza oven: Santa surprised Sean with a pizza oven grill insert last Christmas, and we’ve made excellent use of it! We usually take shortcuts on the base components—Trader Joe’s dough is as good as anything we could make ourselves, and Rao’s Roasted Garlic sauce is *chef’s kiss*—so we can feast our imaginations on toppings. The best pizza we’ve made so far? That’s easy: brisket with chimichurri. Should you find yourself in possession of a pizza oven, Sean recommends buying two peels: a wooden one for sliding the pizza into the oven, and a metal one for retrieving it.

    2. Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass concert: Our whole family has been fond of Herb Alpert semi-ironically ever since we discovered his perfect Christmas album nearly a decade ago. But after seeing him in concert this year, Sarah and Sean are now full-blown fans. (Trumpet pun not intended but nevertheless appreciated.) He’s an icon for a reason! If you’re already on his bandwagon, we’re happy to join you. If not and you’re into peppy jazz and 1960s kitsch, give him a listen!

Drops of God (Apple TV): Upon his death, a French billionaire and wine aficionado makes his estranged daughter and his Japanese protégé compete for his fortune through a series of wine-related tests. It’s a show unlike anything we’d seen before, and it begs to be binged—preferably with a bottle of wine. (We discovered this one during the course of our viewing and can’t recommend it enough.)

Chocolate Coffee Granola (Trader Joe’s):

Sarah’s Top 5

  1. The Pitt (HBO Max):

  2. Sassy Sauce nail polish: For a brief, shining moment in 2024, Sarah was a put-together lady who got manicures regularly. But when the quality could no longer justify the price, she switched to at-home solutions. Sassy Sauce has become her holy grail polish—it lasts up to a week, goes on smoothly, and the colors are a lot of fun. (A close runner-up are pre-glued press-on nails from Impress KISS. They’re easy to apply, last up to two weeks, and the holiday designs are particularly great.)

  3. Creative Arts Center of Dallas: If you’re moderately crafty but not local to Dallas-Forth Worth, consider looking up art studios in your area.

Sean’s Top 5

  1. Spaghetti Carbonara recipe (NYT Cooking):