To you, who are reading this now, in a time that is inevitably the future because of how publication works,

For the past week, we here at HEAVEmedia have been looking back at our favorite things from 2013, from pro wrestling to film to music to TV, and now it’s time for us to take a breather. We’ll be closing up shop for the next two weeks, until January 6, 2014, to recharge and to enjoy whatever holiday nonsense we get up to in that timeframe.

2013 has been one of Heave’s finest years to date. We hit up nearly every Chicago music festival this past summer, branched out into more avenues of culture than we could’ve possibly ever hoped when we set out on our re-launch in early 2012, discovered more and more of Chicago’s heretofore unseen writing talent. We even started an open-mic night (technically in late December 2012, but who’s counting?) at Logan Square’s Uncharted Books, and we co-hosted another in the same venue with the fine folks over at The Button Down.

And as it’s always been at Heave, none of this could’ve happened without all of you. From readers who became writers to readers who passed a piece on to their friends or reposted it on whatever social media outlet they preferred, so much of the progress Heave made as a company and as an outlet in 2013 was because of our audience, who’s stuck by us through the lows of growing pains and the highs of Andrew WK being aware of us for a few minutes via Twitter. This is very much a labor of love for us, and we’re not saying that to be complain-y, but instead to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to spend a bit of your day with us.

Finally, as Heave’s editorial staff, we want to extend a public thanks beyond the private ones already offered to our incredible writing staff, who through sheer passion and work ethic have consistently turned out top-notch work week in and week out. Much like our audience, without the writers, Heave is a blog that two people write for and nobody reads. For populating our pages, our features bar, our reviews section and our podcasts, we thank them all.

And once more, we thank you for reading, and we look forward to sharing our new ideas with you in 2014. Have a happy holiday, go see 47 Ronin or something, drink a lot of gluhwein (or don’t, that’s cool too), and a very happy New Year.

Dominick Suzanne-Mayer, features editor
Amy Dittmeier, music editor
Ryan Peters, culture editor
Collin Bourdage, web editor