Good morning dear friends! How are you? How were your Christmas celebrations? I hope everything went smoothly and that you had a great time with your families!

We had a lovely, quiet Christmas eve, opened presents on Christmas morning, and then had lunch on Christmas day with some dear friends, which was great. But on the evening of the 25th, I got hit by a HUGE cold that knocked me down and left me without voice for 4 days! It had been years since the last time I had had to stay in bed, so this was totally unexpected! Fortunately, Luka and Zoe didn’t catch it, and only have a mild cough. This is the reason that kept me away from blogging this past week…I had no strength to sit in front of the computer!

I am now (almost) completely recovered and I wanted to take a second from all the NYE preparations to thank you for being there, for reading my posts, for commenting, for interacting with me on facebook and twitter, for making this a happier place than I ever thought it would be.

2012 has been a year of growth in many areas of my life and The Celebration Girl has been no different: The blog underwent a face lift thanks to wonderful designer Jessica Sims  and, since then, the overall readership, facebook friends and daily visits more than tripled, persons (other than my mother) subscribed to the blog and now receive all posts by email, I started collaborating regularly with Spanish website Petit-On and participated in Whole Kitchen’s advent calendar, I managed to go back to publishing twice weekly ( atrend I am planning to continue all through 2013)  and even to do it daily during the advent. I have taken so many pictures that my hard drive is begging for a clean-up and, what is best: I am overflowed with ideas for new content, pictures and tutorials. I feel energized and happy and I owe it to you. So, Thank you!

As a final 2012 treat, I though I would share with you some blog statistics that wordpress just delivered to my inbox. Here they go:

• – The Celebration Girl is truly an international blog, read in 151 countries!
• – The countries with bigger readership are, in this order: USA, Spain and Argentina.
• – The most viewed posts were the following: Christmas cookie recipes, The Best cheesecake ever, Tips on how to make meringue cookies , and the fondant tutorials for making flowers and owl cupcake toppers.
• – Pictures seem to be what drove people to this blog, because most visitors arrived through foodgawker, tastespotting, pinterest and google image search. I find that flattering 🙂
• – Most search engine terms were related to fondant, tutorials and to Argentinian recipes. “Easy fondant flowers” was typed 401 times,  “fondant flowers” 259 and “how to make fondant flowers “146”.  I have taken note and will be adding more related content in 2013
• – Amanda was the most regular commenter: THANK YOU!

Thank you, all of you, for being a part of my life. May you be able to close 2012 with a smile in your faces and to greet 2013 with love, hope and faith in whatever it may bring.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!