'Twas the week before Christmas...

It’s that doleful time of the year for many accountants when the world around you becomes obsessed with booze, party frocks and bad TV - and all you’ve got to look forward to are long days and nights juggling accounts, dividend statements and clients’ Self Assessment tax returns.

Here at AccountingWEB.co.uk, we share your plight. While the rest of the economy (retail, entertainment and hospitality sectors excepted) goes into shutdown, AccountingWEB continues to attract traffic and comments throughout the holiday period - even on Christmas day itself from some of our more dedicated members.

As has become our tradition, we’ll be there with you too. Over the next two weeks, Robert Lovell, Natalie Brandweiner and I will be maintaining our basic coverage on the site and monitoring the conversations, particularly in our Self Assessment Zone, where queries and alerts frequently crop up around tax technicalities and quirks in HMRC’s systems.

As part of our SA coverage, we’ll be checking regularly with HMRC and software suppliers for any issues they become aware of, and - with your help - monitoring their service levels in our customer support survey.

Our Tax bulletin on Monday 19 December will be the last one we send before Christmas, but keep an eye on the site for our usual end of the year review package, which will include themed essays on all the big issues of 2011, quotes of the year and a revival of the community-driven AccountingWEB New Year Honours. All of this material will be collected in a Pick of the Year special bulletin on 30 December.

We’re sure there will still be time for French & Saunders, Morecombe & Wise, Dr Who, Manchester United and whatever else takes your fancy this Yuletide. But when it comes down to steady, dependable tax and accounting content, you can still rely on AccountingWEB.

Merry Christmas, everybody and we look forward to seeing plenty of you in the next few weeks.