Your Tuesday Briefing – The New York Times

Cook: Roasted salmon with lime, jalapeño and honey is a speedy weeknight meal with a kick.

Drink: Hosting a Zoom holiday party? Our wine critic has compiled a guide to finding the best Champagne to end a difficult year, from big houses to smaller growers.

Listen: Introduce a festive note with the Oratorio Society of New York’s stream of Handel’s “Messiah,” available free until Jan. 10.

Read, cook, watch, keep busy. Whatever it is, our At Home collection of ideas is here to help.

And now for the Back Story on …

Words that defined 2020

Scores of new words and phrases entered our lexicon this year, including medical jargon and social-media friendly shorthand. For the first time in years, the Oxford English Dictionary publisher declined to choose just one word for its Word of the Year. We’ve compiled some words and phrases that capture 2020.

Blursday. The passage of time became seemingly unreliable this year, as some days felt like a week, while some months flew by in an instant. The Washington Post even started a newsletter called “What Day Is It?”

Doomscrolling. The catchall, platform-agnostic term for consuming bad news or information that stresses you out — yet being unable to stop.

Virtual happy hour. The early weeks of lockdown, like the virus itself, were novel. As people searched for new ways to stay entertained and hold on to some semblance of normalcy from home, virtual happy hours became the event du jour. The wine — and quarantinis — flowed as heavily as the video-call invitations.

That’s it for this briefing. Have a good Tuesday.

— Natasha

Thank you
To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. You can reach Natasha and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about one of America’s most trusted and popular radio hosts.
• Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Evil anagram of SANTA (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.
• “Time” — a film from The Times about a mother striving to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband — was named Best Non-Fiction Film by the New York Film Critics Circle.