Before we bust out for the break, we’ve decided to leave you with a feature that I’m really excited about. Read Dawn Sperber’s If the River Men Take You. It’s a bit longer than some of the stuff we’ve been posting lately but it’s worth it. A fine story to ease you into the holiday.

Not sure what you have planned but we’re going to be spending as much time as possible in a warm bed chipping away at the book pile, eating very fatty foods with friends, sipping hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps, and pretending that we have the metabolism of a humming bird and that a walk around the neighborhood counts as enough exercise to burn off the excess calories.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the direction we’ve taken things this year and we hope to take the magazine in new and exciting directions in 2010. If you’ve been coming back here week after week and reading the stories we’ve been posting and feel that they’ve resonated with you somehow then we’d like to hear about it! Post something in the comments, it’s always nice to hear from the readers. And a big thanks to those of you that have commented on the stories. We hope the year is coming to a peaceful close for you and we all get the rest we deserve before we settle into the oncoming frozen months.

See you in 2010!

Thanks to anuragyagnik for the image.