As the year winds down slowly and we take stock of the progress all of us have made in the past year, I look back on the year that we’ve had on the blog and like to think that we actually grew a little bit as a community.

In January, we experienced some up and down moments with grumbling about John Beilein, but we have some excellent memories of a  Big Ten Tournament that had a frightening start for the team as a plane slid off a runway. That team came together and did things that we didn’t think it could just a short time before, and it was a great moment indeed.

As we slid into our off-topic season, we watched people come and go and discuss whatever, but that’s where we seem to show just how expansive and eclectic we are as a community, no matter how much anyone here complains about. I cannot imagine many blogs where there are sustained literary and movie discussion in the Big Ten, not while our rivals are having the gravest trouble moving away from the ASCII boobs phase of the Internet.

We entered football mode in earnest as August came and we speculated and theorized ourselves to death and we loved every moment of it, no matter how far-fetched we thought our ideas on the depth chart and predictions for the season were. Although there was some disappointment throughout the season and with the 8-4 regular season record, we all still believe – if I am not mistaken – that we have the right person in charge of the program. That is one of the most important uniting principles in the community right now.

All that brings us to Christmas and bowl season really, to right now. Some of us are watching terrible bowl games with the promise of more interesting ones later, some of us are travelling to see family, some of us are exactly where we wish to be and possibly not paying attention to any of that. Whatever you are doing, however, you are still here and part of the MGoBlog community. Our obsession, arguably unhealthy but ours all the same, binds us and brings us here to talk about our school, our campus, a city we adopted as a second or third, or in my case, first home since it is more or less where I grew up.

MGoBlog is, in its own way, a gift that brings what I believe to be the most highly engaged Michigan fans together to hash out their differences and embrace their overarching similarities. It is a present that continues to inform and enrich when it is used to its full potential. Many of us, myself included, come here and learn things about our beloved Wolverines that we didn’t know sometimes, and that’s one of the best features. In a weird sense, it is an educational tool, even if sometimes we don’t exactly say the most erudite things or have the most structured discussions.

No matter how much I bitch about you people, I do want you to know that I am – mo matter how stupid or strange this will sound -  very proud to be a moderator on one of the most influential blogs in the world of Michigan if not in the Big Ten. It actually means something to me to be able to give back, in a weird way, to something which supports the causes of my alma mater. I know that I don’t have the best relationship with everyone on this blog, and that I definitely don’t see eye to eye with everyone, but rest assured I don’t take it personally and your points will return eventually, assuming I remember to return them.

When you reconnect with family and friends over the holiday, remember that some of us are here and probably bored and would not mind a drinking buddy as we get our holiday allotment of hoops and football and movies depicting functional families that are decidedly not our own.

Have a most excellent holiday season,

- LSAClassOf2000