We sincerely take our hats off to you Endeavournauts, Happy Holidays!

The other night, I watched a movie by the title The Man Who Invented Christmas and it got me thinking.

The film was a somewhat romanticised story about how Charles Dickens wrote his classic A Christmas Carol. I have to say, I’m talking about a movie that was backed by Disney, so of course it was sprinkled and drenched with syrup, icing sugar and fairy dust, but those kinds of movies are the ones my soul secretly craves, especially this part of the year. Call it my guilty pleasure, although, when something pleases me, why should I feel guilty about it? But that is a question for another occasion.

In short, in the film you follow Charles Dickens through his struggles. facing his past and present and questioning society when writing the classic novel that we all love and cherish. In the end, there was a note that it broke record sales that first year and charity was raised historically high after that first publishing and it enhanced what we nowadays call the Christmas spirit.

I have no idea if that statement is historically correct but that isn’t the point. Normally I would move on with my day-to-day things in life, but this time, it made me realise something…

Christmas spirit all year through

That infamous Christmas spirit that in general, we’re encouraged to be joyful, charitable, generous, kind, and forgiving. It always gives me a genuinely warm feeling inside encountering those acts of kindness followed by an ice-cold shower when we reach January when all traces of those feelings seemingly vanished in thin air when you accidentally bump into another person in the supermarket.

As you might guess, I’m a bit of a romantic and this time of year, I’m engulfing and drowning myself in that wonderful feeling. The Man Who Invented Christmas, made me realise that those feelings of being joyful, charitable, generous, kind and forgiving are with me through the whole year. Day after day the team and I witness these acts of kindness through our forum, Telegram group and our other social media channels.

People across the world make connections to help each other without ulterior motives and donate their time and/or money to make this community and in the wake of it, this project thrive. And through the eyes of a romantic, like I am, this kind of behaviour is a special and precious gift nobody can take away from me.

Without realising it, the Endeavour community, AKA Endeavournauts, IS the embodiment of the Christmas Spirit, only the whole year through.

The year the community carried the flag

I’m not going to sugarcoat it, 2023 wasn’t our best year in the number of releases. As with most small FOSS projects, life had its agenda that interfered with the project for each team member. We also lost precious contributors this year, who helped make this project roll better with each step it took forward. But that is the harsh reality of projects like this, but all in all, the project did fare well in 2023.

The reason why EndeavourOS didn’t fall into doom and gloom was because of you, all Endeavournauts around the world! You took the flag and waved it like there was no tomorrow in helping each other out, reporting bugs, offering help to the team and donating money to our Open Collective account.

The love, trust and understanding you gave us this year, even when we announced another delay, was overwhelming. This year, we wholeheartedly felt that EndeavourOS is more than a distro, it is a heartwarming community orbiting around an ever-changing ISO and that community spirit is beating strong.

Thank you doesn’t cover the amount of overwhelming gratitude we feel for you for doing what you all do 365 days a year… Helping each other out in a warm and loving community.

We sincerely take our hats off to you, dear Endeavournauts, we wish you all the best in 2024 and keep on waving that flag!