A partridge. A pear tree. These two seemingly random items have become as synonymous with the holidays as Christmas trees and Santa. Well almost. Nothing beats Santa.

I decided to do a little research to find out exactly why these gifts were chosen, since they don’t exactly scream romance. What I’ve found is that there was an old tradition where a  young girl should walk backward around a pear tree three times and then gaze into the branches. There, she would see her true love and future husband. In Europe, partridges commonly sat in fruit trees, so combined with their symbolism of fertility (they apparently breed like rabbits), this is a pretty romantic gift choice after all. A gift like that would go to someone you completely adore.

Of course, with any tradition, there are other possible meanings behind “partridge in a pear tree” – but that’s the one I like best!

Anyway, to me, this is a fitting way to end the 12 Days of Blogging. Today, like many of you, I’m sure, I spent the day celebrating with my family. While I did grow up Christian, for us, the day is not so much religious as it is a day where we celebrate one another. In fact, we have this silly and wonderful Christmas tradition where someone in the family gets a gold star necklace, then the next year they pick who gets the necklace (usually for an accomplishment, such as graduating high school or surviving a heart attack or getting a promotion), and then that persons picks the recipient the next year so on and so on – it just keeps getting passed around the family. Christmas is a day for us to spend time together as a family and be thankful we have one another.

As I was opening gifts and eating waaaaay too many Christmas cookies, my phone kept chirping from Twitter DMs and pinging because I was getting new emails and text messages. I realized something; you all are my family too.

I have met the most amazing, understanding, supportive, friendly, giving people through blogging and social media. Some of you, I’ve only met in real life once or twice – or not at all. But you have become my family.

And isn’t that really what blogging is all about? Sure, we can talk about post writing and SEO and podcasting and everything else I’ve covered in the 12 Days of Blogging…but why do we do what we do? There are certainly easier ways to make money. There are certainly many avenues for getting our voices heard. Why do we choose blogging?

I think for most of us, it is the community. When I look into the branches of the virtual pear tree, I see all of your avatars smiling back at me. Blogging and connecting through new media gives me this awesome family living around the world. This network, this community, this is why I do what I do. Both here and at After Graduation, connecting with readers, one person at a time, has meant the world to me.

To show my appreciation, I’d like to give you a partridge in a pear tree. No, I’m not sending fruit and pheasants your way. This week, I’ll be releasing A Partridge in a Pear Tree: The 12 Days of Blogging 2010 right here on the BlogWorld blog. This will be a complete compilation of the 12 Days of Blogging, from 12 Writers Writing to 2 Ethics Debates. That way, if you missed a day or two or didn’t have time for the series at all, you can download the ebook and read it at your leisure without clicking around to all the links.

A Partridge in a Pear Tree will be completely free with no email sign-up necessary. BlogWorld isn’t paying me to do this, nor will I be accepting donations (some people have actually emailed me to ask about that – y’all are super flattering!!). I just want to make it available to you, if you want it, as a holiday gift with no strings attached.

The ebook will be ready this coming week, before New Years, so check back to grab your copy! If you’re worried about remembering, follow me on Twitter (@allison_boyer) – I’ll be tweeting about it as soon as it is released. You can also subscribe to the BlogWorld RSS feed or newsletter, of course, to receive a reminder!

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for reading here at BlogWorld and on After Graduation. Thank you for all the retweets, all the Facebook likes, all the comments. Thank you for coming to BlogWorld Expo and meeting me, the amazing BlogWorld staff, and one another. Thank you for submitting speaker proposals. Thank you for helping mold this industry into something amazing. Thank you.