The Last Toast: A Final Note Before We Close the Year

There’s a curious part on the calendar that we all share, though it shows up on different days globally: the last page of the year.

It’s where you find the odd socks you forgot you owned, the receipts you told yourself you’d reconcile in April, and the small, stubborn joys that outlived the spreadsheets.

It’s also where we stand, together and slightly squinting, deciding whether to clap politely at how the year behaved or to give it the kind of long, slow stare that only family members are allowed to give another family member.

So let’s clink glasses, metaphorically, literally, choose your poison, and do the tidy thing: celebrate what worked, admit what didn’t, and admit, with a suitable dash of dark humor, that we’ll all be back in January pretending we didn’t learn anything we should’ve.

You will laugh, you will sigh, and you will sleep later than you should. All valid.

This year was many things: a long conference call pretending to be a life, a stubborn resolve to ship better work more often, and a handful of brilliant people who insisted on making things kinder and smarter.

It was late nights where ideas felt like contraband and mornings when coffee performed miracles.

It was also the routine small cruelties, systems that refused to cooperate, plans that needed pruning, and Murphy’s Law making a cameo whenever we had a deadline.

We survived all of it.

You did.

We did.

I want this post to be a house, not a fortress, not a showroom, a place where everyone is welcome to come in, take off one shoe, and say what’s on their mind.

If you celebrate Christmas, there’s a seat by the tree.

If you light candles for other traditions, set them proudly on the mantle.

If you prefer silence, bring a blanket. If you bring a casserole, don’t tell me what’s in it; I’ll love it anyway.

Diversity of rituals is not just tolerated here, it’s the point.

There’s a soft bravery in what we do: re-learning how to be patient with ourselves, choosing generosity even when deadlines demand ferocity, and building work that serves people rather than neatly stuffing them into dashboards.

Empathy doesn’t make the deck prettier, but it makes the human on the other side of that spreadsheet more than a line item.

That’s civilization.

That’s good product design.

That’s what you will be remembered for.

Now, the dark humor, because I promised it and because levity keeps us honest.

If 2025 taught us anything, it’s that schedules are optimistic suggestions, travel plans are optional comedy, and that somewhere, uninvited, entropy ordered a crate of surprises.

Let’s all give 2025 a polite nod and a firm handshake on the way out.

A few practical wishes for you, codified like a champion’s playbook for the small things:

• Let your out-of-office be a public service announcement. You will get work after-hours either way; make it part of the fun. Set expectations, not traps.
• Spend half an hour in the coming days doing work that feeds you, not just tasks that drain you. Read something not for ROI. Cook something not for likes. Walk somewhere you can’t check a notification.
• Say “thank you” three extra times to the people who carried you unnoticed. Gratitude compounds faster than most social signals. (I personally beg you, please do a lot more of this!!)
• Make one small promise to yourself that you will keep. Not because it impresses anyone, but because keeping promises to yourself makes you a reliable person for everyone else.

To the leaders reading this: you will be judged less by the metrics you publish and more by the quiet things you enable recovery time after a sprint, a culture that tolerates honest mistakes, the courage to end a meeting that should have been an email.

Leadership built on empathy scales better than charisma in the long run.

To the solitary grinders and the lonely achievers: you will still be permitted to be proud.

Pride is not a sin when it’s the honest result of hard, methodical work.

But also let someone else make the next cup of coffee.

Let someone else carry the bag.

And to everyone unsure about belonging in a noisy holiday conversation: you belong.

To all our friends, we say this – Bring your stories. Bring your silences. Bring whatever you celebrate.

Our house has room for all of it.

We’re not ending on a note of fake perfection.

I refuse to sugarcoat the parts of the year that were frankly a test, the layoffs that were necessary but painful, the deals that collapsed, the nights you stared at the ceiling wondering if you were doing it right.

Those are real.

We honor them.

We learn from them.

We make better plans because of them.

So, as the lights go up and the playlists shuffle into festive indecision, do not feel obliged to be anything except yourself.

If that self is a bright, raucous, story-telling machine, perfect.

If it’s quiet and needs a moment to warm up, perfect.

The best celebrations are the ones where no one leaves feeling unseen.

I’ll end with the blunt Christmas card no one sends but everyone needs: be kind to your people, be kind to your future self, and for heaven’s sake, back up your work.

Twice.

Thrice.

DAILY!

You will thank me later.

Come by our house if you like.

Bring a joke.

Bring a friend.

Bring your weird family tradition I’ve never heard of, I will listen, I will laugh, and I will put your casserole in the oven without asking questions.

Merry whatever-you-celebrate, and see you on the other side; rested, stubborn, and ready.