Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, we wish you the happiest and most peaceful of days, a Festive Season where you can relax and recharge your batteries and the space away from the usual hustle and bustle to let you make plans for what you want to achieve next year.

I make no apologies for recycling this picture from last year. Partly because Mary Reid is brilliant at making this sort of stuff and I am not and partly because I love seeing the same things at Christmas. Unpacking the box of Christmas treasures and remembering where this or that bauble or picture came from is quite special. But then I’ve always been the soppy sort.

The other thing I really want to do is to say thank you to everyone who makes this site what it is. Thanks for reading, commenting and writing for us.

My personal thanks to to the wonderful team who put an awful lot of hours in to keep us going. I am still mortified from that occasion in the Summer when I routinely emailed our technical guru Ryan because the site was down. He responded pretty much immediately and all was soon well. It was only later that I realised he was at the maternity hospital awaiting the birth of his baby. That’s the sort of commitment our people show. To Alex for keeping the wolf from the door and our finances in order, to Alan for keeping our Twitter and Facebook fresh and informative (until I get in there and lower the tone), to Sara, Helen, Nick, Joe, Mark and Mary for keeping us going daily which isn’t always easy.

Thanks also to those who have left the team, but not our circle of friends and regular contributors this year, Paul Walter, Mark Pack and Andy Boddington.

Sometimes you go to plan a day on the site and it’s like Christmas morning where the fridge is groaning under the strain of beautiful and delicious food.Other days, it’s more Old Mother Hubbard. Nobody’s written for us and everybody’s talking about some minor celebrity’s love life. Our day editors have to use their initiative and ingenuity to keep the site stocked up with interesting and often provocative content and they always deliver.

I know that many people appreciate the patient and helpful editorial advice our team gives, which is always done in a spirit of wanting to strengthen the article, to make its arguments, from whatever perspective they are coming from, clearer and more engaging.  It’s very rewarding for us to see writers grow in confidence and contribute more to us. If you want to have a go at writing for us in the future, here’s how.

I thought I was the trashy member of the editorial team, but it was my co-editor Stephen who made the pledge to run naked down Whitehall this year. He’s great to work with and I’m in constant admiration of the way he puts out such high quality stuff which is respected across the mainstream media as well as the blogosphere.

Behind the scenes, they’re a wise and fun bunch to work with and I learn from them all the time. I appreciate all that they do so much.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social