This week eight months of joyful collaboration between journalists, with their unexpected passions, our wonderfully creative graphics team and unsympathetic editors who enforce word counts for print culminate in The Economist’s Christmas double issue. We avoid putting news on the cover; instead we go for something rather jollier (readers and journalists need an occasional break from the relentless news). This year we took inspiration from a piece about the task of catering on the biggest cruise ship in the world, with the addition of a bit of snow. Look carefully at the cover art, and you will find references to all the stories in the issue.

The Christmas features really do provide a rest from the gloom that hangs over much of the world. A delightful exploration of the economic positions of Jane Austen demonstrates how she anticipated the work of the Chicago school by more than a century. An intrepid reporting trip to the Caribbean, braving the world of luxury cruise ships, illuminates how their staff manage to churn out 10,000 meals a day. Braver still was the correspondent who enrolled in a dating bootcamp to learn the art of seduction for PUAs looking for SHBs (initialisms are a crucial component). Another piece asks whether the best way to understand history is to play video games.

And a feature introduces readers to The Economist Education Foundation, a charity backed by The Economist that teaches children around the world how to think critically about the news. The Foundation works mostly through schools and reached 500,000 children this year, helping them make sense of current affairs and disagree without being disagreeable. With your help, we’re hoping to reach 1m children in 2026. Please follow this link to donate. 

Finally, on today’s Insider show, some of my colleagues try to make sense of the head-spinning events of the past 12 months. What mattered? What was just noise? And what does it all add up to? You can watch it now on our Insider Hub.  

There will be no print edition next week but we’ll continue to publish online and in our app every day—and send you our newsletters. I wish you all a lovely holiday.