Welcome to our limited online holiday break edition! While there is not anywhere near as much as you normally find in our regular print edition, we wanted to have a little something out there to keep up with the news and for those of you who might be missing the paper a little bit, maybe sitting by your mailbox on Wednesday morning, moping a little?

We will be back in print next week, January 12, with our usual assortment of news, features, letters, sports and, of course, the vacation photos. We're already gathering up lots of stuff to have a nicely rounded issue after our holiday break.

I'm no web design expert, so I'm pretty proud of the fact that the pages loaded and you can navigate the site. Actually, I'm pretty proud of the fact that you're not currently reading a 404 error code. If you do have any problems, feel free to drop me a line. I probably won't be able to do a thing about it, but it's good to know! Seriously, though, we may use this format more in the future, in addition to the print edition, so if there's something you'd like to see online, let us know and we'll take your suggestions into consideration.

As we've said before, we aren't big fans of online newspapering (yes, that's a word now, 'cause I'm the editor and I said so...) and we aren't planning to go online-only as a permanent vehicle. We like having a print publication and one that you can look forward to holding in your hands on Wednesdays. We like that you can take it with you wherever you're most comfortable and you don't need a plug or a wifi connection and you can't use it to call or text your friends. You can, however, use it to line the dog's crate or the cat box or to start a fire or wrap your best Christmas ornaments when you finally get around to taking down the tree....

Am I the only one whose tree is still up? Nah, I know I can't be. I mean technically-speaking, the twelve days of Christmas start on Christmas Day and run through January 6, the Epiphany, so I still have until Thursday before Christmas is even over. Yah, that's it. Huge Epiphany fan, here; have to keep the tree up. And I'm thinking, since Tim worked so hard on putting up the lights, they should probably be left up a little longer, too. And there's no way I'm putting away my snowmen or my winter village because, hey, it IS still winter. I think I'm pretty much off the hook then. That's a relief.

We hope you had a safe and happy holiday break and we will see you next week, back in print, on Wednesday, January 12. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this week's online issue and since the page needed some kind of graphic element to spice it up, I hope you don't mind a self-indulgent photo of my grandsons -Trevor, 7 months, on the left and 3yr old Maddox on the right- on Christmas Day.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
Cyndy Bremer, editor/production   editor@stowindependent.com