Merry Christmas and a happy new tree!

[Walter Buggenhout]

Aaaah, just three days to Christmas. Let's be honest - it's that time of year where you can settle down, look back to what has been and make plans for what will be.

I feel lucky to say my holiday has just started. Although our cat is already making sure that it will most likely be less relaxing than I am hoping for:

I want to share a cool memory of 2017 and a new year's wish for all of you and hope you are willing to do the same!

Although I travelled quite a lot last year, met amazing people and had the chance to experience wonderful things in many places, I think the coolest thing happened close to home. Around late September, my phone rang. One of our customers. He had one or two simple questions for us, but before asking them he asked me if he could tell me something first. Of course, I said. And he spoke the following words: "Have I told you yet that you guys are awesome? I have to do so, because you are".

I was speechless at first, but then ran around with a big smile on my face for what must have been about a week. All we did was help them implement a project management solution based on Jira and Big Picture.

Although it didn't cost anything, it made a huge and positive impression. And frankly, it doesn't happen all too often. So my wish to you all awesome people for next year is to be called awesome once and a while next year. Because you all are ;-)

Merry Christmas and very best wishes for 2018!

[Thomas Schlegel]

Merry Christmas, @Walter Buggenhout and everyone else! I'm almost in Christmas mode (a little bit more every day, since I'm doing this Advent Calendar thing here) - I'm leaving the office in an hour or so.

My "speechless" moment 2017 was the surprising award I got in San Jose. I had no idea before (Monique didn't tell anything, not the slightest hint...) - and maybe you saw my big smile there :-)

Btw, this nice flamingo is a real part of our christmas tree. Although it's quite traditional, we have a little kitsch corner, and we like it :-)

Happy holidays and see you in 2018!   

[carolyn french]

I'd love to see more of the "kitsch corner"! Time for lots of cats knocking Christmas trees over videos... Merry Christmas to you both, and congrats on the nice highlights from 2017!

[Monique vdB]

I love New Year's -- I love taking time to reflect on the previous year and make resolutions for the year ahead.

We took a trip to Italy over Thanksgiving, and it was my first time to Florence, Venice, and Pompeii. Being able to see so much amazing art and share it with my daughter was awesome!

Wish

Wish for the new year is to finally finish the novel I've been working on, see some new birds for my life list, and watch this community continue to grow and thrive!

Happy new year and gelukkig niew yaar, everyone!

[Monique vdB]

Also to make the editor window bigger so I can see what I'm doing. 😉