No Nonsense #73 - How Not To Be Bored This Christmas
Hi Dolls!
We hope you’re having a gorgeous holiday season. We know this time of year can feel restless, so for this edition of No Nonsense we’ve put together an extensive list of books, films and activities to keep you occupied over the holidays.
See you in the new year! <3
Ione Gamble - Editor in Chief
TV Shows
Because letterboxd doesn’t properly have a tv feature and I watch so much I tasked myself with chronicling every single full season of television I watched this year. The result is… mental illness! But I might be uniquely placed to rec tv lol. By all means lots of these shows have been pure drivel. But if you’re bored between Christmas and new year here’s my top television shows - old and new - of 2025.
Skeleton crew
ok YES I know Star Wars is the most un-polyester coded thing but this series is so sweet and choc full of the heart warming wholesomeness you want during the holidays. Everything stranger things should be if I’m being real.
Below deck (flagship not med)
Now I’m fully a bravo head it was only a matter of time but this year as really been the year of below deck for me. Yes it’s trash and we don’t need to over intellectualise! But also, it taught me more about workplace dynamics than any other piece of media I’ve consumed in my life.
Gina Tonic - Senior Editor
I got into this card game this year and it’s so fun, really easy to pick up and it’s just nice to do a physical game with everyone!
Watch a movie series
Dithering over what film to watch is an ongoing buzzkill we’re all constantly reckoning with, let alone when we have loads of spare time over Xmas. I recommend removing choice from the equation and watching a movie series over a number of days - something with loads of iterations, like Hellraiser or Alien.
Hatti Rex - Contributing Editor
Video game: Pokémon Legends: Z-A
Impulsively treated myself to the new Pokémon game for the original Switch as I’d been losing it a bit living at my parent’s houses and saw it’s a few quid cheaper to buy it in Smyth’s toys than online. There’s been a lot of mixed reviews but I’m really enjoying it, Lumiose City is based on Paris and you can take your Pokémon friends out to the café, customise your outfit and all sorts. Really love climbing the alphabetical rating system as you battle your way to the top, exploring the rooftops and completing my little sidquests. I literally physically ran away from my Mum who was getting Christmas bits in Hobbycraft to purchase this, talk about regression.
I’ve been on the MGNA Crrta hype train since first hearing JFK-LAX in the Summer of 2023, the nostalgic 2010’s party girl optimism and speaker blowing distortion instantly charmed me plus Farheen Khan and Ginger Scott seem like a couple of divas you’d love to share Lambrini on the bus with. Their kaleidoscopic dreamlike video for BFF that dropped a couple of weeks ago feels very Windows Movie Maker if it slayed, definitely a banger to bop around your bedroom to this Winter and it should be doing the rounds at gay music video nights worldwide!!!!!!!
Jenn Lehwald - Social Editor
Book: It's Terrible The Things I Have to Do To Be Me: On Femininity and Fame by Philippa Snow
Finally got around to reading this and loved it so much. An essay collection about pairs of famous women (Anna Nicole Smith and Marilyn Monroe, Pamela Anderson and Tula, Lindsay Lohan and Elizabeth Taylor etc) and how the performance of femininity intersects with fame. So well written and readable i couldn’t put it down!!!!
I’ve been watching this since I was a kid and it’s one of my favourite shows ever. If you’ve never seen it and care about reality TV at all, you need to watch it. It might be slightly daunting as there is 49 seasons (700+ episodes), but you don’t need to watch them in chronological order - I’ve included my favourite seasons below:
Season 20 - Heroes vs Villains
Season 38 - David vs Goliath (Mike White who did The White Lotus is on this season and some of the cast from Survivor have cameos in the second season lmao)
Season 16 - Fans vs Favorites
Season 28 - Cagayan
Season 31 - Second Chance
Season 40- Winners at War (all winners season, best to watch once you have some context and favourite players etc but this season rips)
Misha MN - Contributing Editor
Every year I make time to watch this 1971 masterpiece, it fulfils all my aesthetic desires and reminds me that beautiful things can still be created, no matter how grim the circumstances are. Shot by James Bidgood, Pink Narcissus is the story of a young male sex worker moving through different elaborate fantasy settings, from a Spanish bullfight to a Sultan’s palace, it’s a kitsch odyssey that was all handmade and filmed in a single tiny New York apartment. I come back to it every year in that no man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s because I think it resets my standards for beauty, for creativity, for sensuality. It makes me excited to start new things, to return to old projects, to finish what needs to be finished. It’s an oasis of enchantment, a rejuvenation of the imagination, it’s everything it could be.
For anyone who loves a touch of pathos in their holiday festivities (me! Me! ME!) this Judy Garland song is perfect for you! From the 1957 album Alone (a great title, maybe my favourite Judy album), it provides a great companion piece to what is arguably the best Christmas song of all, the gut wrenching Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
“The gay ones don their silly paper hats
And blow their stupid little horns
At midnight they will all be singing Auld Lang Syne
But the sad ones sit alone before the fire and sip a glass of lonely wine”
Lauren O’Neill - Managing Editor
Megan Abbott novels
If you like getting cosy with a book when the weather outside is frightful and so on, I’d really recommend Megan Abbott. Her books usually centre around young women, and they are best classified as thrillers. Usually they have great plots with loads of twists, which always keep me turning pages, so they are excellent if you need to have your attention caught constantly but you’re sick of scrolling.
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See you next time!
XOXO,
The Polyester Team
