Merry Christmas And Happy New Year

Taylor Knapp, 6-years-old, tries to place a letter for a welcome home sign for her stepfather U.S. Army Sgt. Joseph Peoples before he returns home from a 15 month deployment to Iraq December 22, 2008 in Fort Stewart, Georgia. Peoples deployed with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, 4th Brigade Combat Team in October of 2007 for his third deployment since the U.S. led invasion in 2003. By Stephen Morton/Getty.

This year, the Dish is going to take off the week between Christmas and New Year. Patrick and I are pretty much wiped out after a year of the craziest, most frenetic, most exciting blogging since the Dish began. This time last year, if you can remember, we were poised on the edge of the primaries, and Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani were slated to be the likeliest choice in the fall. We've been posting every day, including Saturday and Sunday, ever since, at a pace we've never even attempted before - peaking at over 400 posts a week. If you don't take time out, and spend it with those you love, you'll never have the energy and stamina to keep it up in the New Year. So the next week will simply be window views - from your windows, as you celebrate the season.

We have many plans to bring the Dish to new places next year; and I wanted to thank you all for being such an integral part of this conversation. The Dish tripled in size this year, as Patrick helped me expand in new directions. All my colleagues at the Atlantic, from James Bennet to the interns, Teddy, Daniel, Stephen, Vanessa, and Laura, helped make it happen as well, as did the benevolent support of David Bradley and Atlantic Media. If you appreciate what we've done, the best way of expressing it is to buy a subscription to the print magazine - the best monthly in America. I feel particularly aware of the Atlantic's priceless legacy this year, as a magazine founded to end slavery played a part in helping make the case for the first black president in American history. Somewhere, the founders are very happy.

For what it's worth, my two long-form essays of the past year for the Atlantic were "My Big Fat Straight Wedding", a personal reflection on the meaning of the California court decision to grant marriage equality to gay couples, and a meditation on "Why I Blog." Oh, and Goodbye To All That may stand as a kind of wish and prayer for the New Year.

God bless and Happy Christmas.

Andrew