Dear friends of JEPP:
it is time to once again to thank you, our dear reviewers, authors and readers, for producing great research, constructively commenting on manuscripts and engaging with the pieces published in JEPP. We hope 2024 will be as productive for research on public policy, European politics and the EU as 2023 was.
Before we ring in the new year, we will spent some quiet days in the sun or the snow, or what is left thereof. Scroll down to read more about our plans. Hopefully, all of you can also enjoy a well-deserved break over the holidays. We are looking forward to hearing from you in 2024! Stay tuned for our upcoming issues, debate sections and special issues. Follow us on Twitter (@jepp_journal) or Blue Sky (@jeppjournal.bsky.social) and subscribe to our newsletter.
Happy holidays!
Your JEPP team
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For Michael, this will be the first Christmas without his beloved mother Monika. She died in August 2023 after difficult last months. To share the innumerable good memories of her, Michael will meet with some of her old friends over the holidays. Monika loved her grandson Kolja, whose first day in school she missed only narrowly and with whom she remains unbeaten as a team playing Memory. Her favorite flowers were cowslips.
Sarah and her family will leave their ‘creatively’ decorated home (photo) in Innsbruck to celebrate Christmas with her parents in the Black Forest. It will be their first Christmas as a family of four since the newest family member, Paula, was only born in October. They will hopefully eat a lot of Swabian treats like Maultaschen (Swabian Ravioli) and potato salad. before they return to the white mountains and back country skiing in Austria.
As usual, we will be spending Christmas at our holiday home in Akaroa, joined by our daughters Tess and Molly, and their partners Billy and Iain. Murphy, the family dog, will supervise Billy and Iain on the BBQ as Murphy is very particular about how his steak and sausages are cooked. As regular JEPP readers will be glad to hear, I remain persuaded that paddle boarding is NOT for anyone over 80. My more modest target is simply to get as far as this view.
Berthold and Jess will leave their digs in Upper Bavaria & Salzburg to spend Christmas with Berthold’s family in Tübingen, that is, in the heartland of Swabian-protestant ascetism. They hope for a feast nevertheless. Semih (pictured) will take a well-deserved vacation at his favorite cat hotel, where he and his friends will surely plot how they can fill our lives with ever more excitement in 2024. Happy holidays, everyone!