Merry Christmas! The crew here at Art of Manliness will be taking a break until January 7 so that we can enjoy the holidays with family and friends, as well as reboot for 2013. Yes, we’re taking two weeks off. Whenever we’ve taken a week off in the past, it’s just been a break from posting new articles, but not from researching and writing….because you have to have something to come back with the next Monday! We haven’t had a full-on break from all things blog-related for ages, and after finishing our two most epic series of all time — Heading Out on Your Own and Manly Honor, we’re pretty much totally fried. So thanks for your patience as we get ready to make 2013 the best AoM year yet.

But before we knock off, here’s a look back at the good stuff from 2012 and some appreciation for those folks that make AoM possible.

The Most Popular Posts of 2012

How to Whistle With Your Fingers

Yes, That’s a Tampon in My Mouth: The Swiss Army Survival Tampon – 10 Survival Uses

50 Stocking Stuffers for Men

How to use a [BUSTED] Cell Phone to Meet 5 Basic Survival Needs

A Man’s Guide to the Scarf

6 Forgotten Drugstore Colognes and Aftershaves

The Desk Jockey Workout: 8 Ways to Stay in Shape at the Office

How to Roll Your Shirt Sleeves

Bosom Buddies: A Photo History of Male Affection

16 Manly Last Words

Editors’ Picks

Of course traffic isn’t the only measure of the worth of a post. Here are some of our personal favorites from this year:

The Generations of Men: How the Cycles of History Shape Your Values, Your Idea of Manhood, and Your Future [If you only read one article from this list, maybe even the site, make it this one. I think it’s the most interesting and possibly important we’ve done. I’ve personally thought about it nearly every day since writing it, and you’ll certainly never watch the news the same way again.]

Hold Fast: How Forgetfulness Torpedoes Your Journey to Becoming the Man You Want to Be, and Remembrance Is the Antidote

The Woodsman Workout

Understanding and Building Your Willpower (series)

Can’t Have the Sweet Without the Bitter

The Importance of Roughhousing With Your Kids

Freedom From…Freedom To

8 Personal Finance Lessons from Benjamin Franklin

History of the American Bachelor (series)

A Timeless Tradition: A Man’s Treasure Box

Want to Feel Like a Man? Then Act Like One

Manly Honor (series)

Heading Out on Your Own: 31 Basic Life Skills in 31 Days (series)

The AoM Archives

If the above posts aren’t enough to satiate your AoM appetite, I highly recommend browsing through our archives. We have over 1,600 articles in there waiting to be discovered.

A Thank You to Art of Manliness’ Contributors

The Art of Manliness has some of the best contributors in the world — gents that produce top-notch content and are a joy to work with.

Thank you to Creek Stewart from Willow Haven Outdoor, and Antonio Centeno of Real Men Real Style who combined to give us 4 of the 10 most popular posts this year. Where would we be without you guys, and your ability to share your knowledge of your areas of expertise in such an accessible and enriching way.

Thank you to Matt Moore of Have Her Over for Dinner and our newest contributing writer, Marcus Brotherton of Men Who Lead Well, for your excellent articles that add so much to the site.

Thank you to Darren Bush of Rutabaga, who doesn’t submit articles nearly enough, but always gives us gems when he does. And who also provided one of the best SYWMJ interviews of all time this year. He’s got a book in the works, and has promised us several excerpts, so I’m pretty pumped about that.

Thank you to the unmatchable Ted Slampyak of Storyteller’s Workshop for his illustrations and visual guides that are a delight to behold. I seriously get kind of giddy when Ted sends me what he’s cooked up for an article.

And thank you to Jeremy Anderberg, who’s been helping us edit articles as they’ve become meatier and the workload for the site has gone up.

Thank you men for helping keep the Art of Manliness going and making it excellent.

A Thank You to Art of Manliness Readers

We’re coming up on our fifth birthday this January, and what a long, awesome trip it’s been. The Art of Manliness had another great year of growth in 2012, going from 118,000 subscribers to 154,000, from 7 million pageviews a month to 15 million, from 80k fans on Facebook to 154k, and from 27k followers on Twitter to almost almost 50k.

Thank you to everyone who visited the site this last year, and definitely to our fans who have been around since way back in 2008. Thanks to those who left an insightful comment on one of our articles that added to the discussion and our own knowledge base. The discussions on AoM are definitely a cut above the rest. A big thanks to those who simply took the time to say they enjoyed an article. We put an insane amount of pressure on ourselves to only put out the best stuff, and you’ll never know how much your words of appreciation mean to us. It really keeps us going.

Thank you to everyone who shared our posts with other people via email, Facebook, Twitter or word of mouth. We aim both to entertain and to edify, and have no grand illusions about our importance, but our truest desire is to at the very least get more people thinking about society, their lives, the meaning of manliness, and the infinite worth of honorable men. We hope we can add, even in the smallest way, to starting some conversations, giving people direction, and spurring a healthier appreciation for manliness specifically, and the virtuous life generally.

We’ll be working hard in 2013 to keep bringing you top quality, totally free content that informs, entertains, and inspires. See you then!

Semper Virilis!

What are your favorite Art of Manliness articles from the past year? (Or of all time?) Your feedback is always welcome and helps us improve the site.