Have you been naughty or nice this year? Deserving of a gift or a good old fashioned kick in the butt (I always get the kick but hey, that's life) - while a good portion of the world shuts down to enjoy Christmas Day let's not forget our community members that have their own religious holidays - not exclusively Morocco, Thailand, Russia, Turkey, The Maldives, Vietnam, Somalia, Laos, Cambodia, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Iraq, China, Congo, Algeria, Yemen, Kazakhstan, United Arab Emirates, Libya, Iran, Azerbaijan, Comoros, Oman, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Bhutan, Nepal, North Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Tajikistan, Bahrain, Israel, Tunisia and Afghanistan. That is a whole load of people who will be working hard tomorrow while we unwrap gifts, I don't know off hand when they have their own religious days but I would like to - that's something for me to work on - celebrating everyones Religious holidays feel free to enlighten me in the comments when your special day of the year is (that includes Birthdays!)

It's been a funny old year, the blogging based site I joined in March 2017 evolved into a social community and then grew even more into a gaming platform with @steemmonsters, video sharing with @dtube, mobile app platform through @partiko and a exercising community with @actifit. The value of the Steem token might have gone up and down, but the people I have met have always been of the highest value and continue to be.

@adsactly has their own game running as well, and it's another community winner where you get to build your profile in AdsactlyCity.

And community has to be the biggest development for me this year, so many people and groups have touched my heart it is impossible to cover them all. From the start of the year @thealliance became an incredible group to support and help people on here, led by the Witness @enginewitty who is devoted to the blockchain the entire family feeling ensures anyone feels at home and now more then ever anyone can join in and feel the love. The @helpie community has grown incredibly and again look after each other, led by the the inspirational @meno who is someone I could listen to in Discord for hours - true heart for the blockchain.

The Ramble Discord is another community that runs weekly shows like Pimp Your Posts Thursdays and also the monthly Witness Chats where you can discuss what you want from your Steem Witnesses.

Growing community has to start with new users, and @dreemsteem and @bluefinstudios recognised this when they started @thewelcomewagon - an inspirational discord that finds our finest new posters and encourages them to develop their posting ability.

It is all about @steemcommunity, and engagement is something @abh12345 and @paulag can tell you all about - when you realise that how you engage other people brings them to your own posts the real value of posting can be achieved - no matter how good your post is if nobody knows it is there then the value is lost - when you give other people a reason to look at your work because you regularly look at their own - then a cycle of growth begins.

Curation takes many forms, and @poeticsnake offers an amazing concept through @yougotsnekked by promoting posts only through voice chat - a fun and friendly community with @bugiq , @madlesage and @anyaehrim

@steemclub-uk run by @pennsif is bringing together the best of British Steemians, and through his weekly show on PAL Discord Thursdays 8pm to 11pm you can listen to the State of Steem discussions with a medley of Witnesses and Steem Stakeholders dedicated to moving the blockchain forward.

I'm only just scratching the surface of the Steem Blockchain, and already it's making me wonder why anyone would consider it going backwards? Every day of every week I find new communities I never even new about - there is so much going on it's impossible even if you spend every waking minute scouring posts to find the people and projects - don't expect it to jump out and bite you - our best projects like you to come hunt them down @steemhunt style.

And bringing business to the blockchain we have @dstors, with @derangedvisions and @kaliju I fully support with this project to bring buying and selling through Steem to the community with shipping mitigation via the reward pool - it will change lives for the better and I'm excited to see this happen.

Who am I? I'm a middle aged British man living in the centre of Yorkshire, UK - roasting coffee for a living and being an agent for the Turkish coffee roasters I use to roast coffee. In my limited spare time I do my best to support the Steem blockchain with posts, comments, my Witness Server and backup Witness Server - and I keep saying right now - I'll run a full Node if and when we don't have enough from anyone else to keep a consistent blockchain. WE are the blockchain, the community, the people and our beliefs - as long as WE STAND TOGETHER then it will grow and all our stakes in Steem will grow with it.

I can not even start to mention all the people on here that have made my journey on the Steem Blockchain so special, for sure if you follow my blog every resteem is someone that means something to me or I feel adds value to the Blockchain. We have an incredible community, and a collective of minds that can change the world - IF they work together - don't let these opportunities slip away - TOGETHER we are STEEM.

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Dropping out with Jax Jones, the delightful @saffisara knows I love this track and it truly embodies my feelings...

Some of my previous posts you might have missed

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Witness Update by @c0ff33a 20.6 @dstors and more

Coffee’s of the World

Sublime Sunday by @c0ff33a ☕️

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"Something in you you lit up heaven in me"

Last Confirmed Block Number 28,859,106 Last Aslot 28,955,019
Steemd v0.20.8

Kind thanks to @enginewitty for employing his Ninja graphic design skills and producing this 🔥 banner

If you enjoyed my post don’t forget to leave an Upvote, feel free to comment on what you liked or where I can do better even. Follow @c0ff33a for regular and varied posts, photography, my weekly VLOG, posts on coffee roasting and brewing - just follow and see.

To grow your presence and following on Steemit, be active in the community Discords that offer the chance to learn, network, share and be found. The #SteemitRamble discord https://discord.gg/HZYzEry hosts a range of shows where you can join in and get your name shown, every Thursday there are two Pimp My Post Thursdays which are hugely popular and give you an opportunity to get your posts seen.

For fun and entertainment then #SteemStar is the discord to be in, https://discord.gg/ZDANjzy with regular shows during the week it’s the best place to relax, and also network the friends you make could be your future biggest upvoters.

All photos are my own, taken with my iPhone. All my Steemit posted pictures can be freely used by other Steemit users in their own blog posts - all I ask is that you follow me and credit @c0ff33a linking to my post you took it from. You can also follow me on Twitter

You can view my current Witness Statistics using this tool produced by Witness @justyy

The picture to the right kindly sketched by the wonderful @bridget.art , be sure to check her incredible art out https://steemit.com/@bridget.art

" A Shy Old British Geography and Biology Geek, is a Nut addict and loves Coffee and obcessed with Jax Jones" as @steemflow describes me.

The greatest challenge we face on Steemit is getting our posts seen, I have always believed the simplest and best value way of doing this is by commenting on the blog posts of others, the more you engage people and interact with them the greater the chance they will visit your own blog and return the favour. Other then spending all my free time commenting on Steemit posts, I also distribute coffee roasting machines and also espresso coffee machines and roast my own Speciality Coffee Range. being one of the premium coffee suppliers Yorkshire including a wide range of filter coffee sachets

!steemitworldmap 53.766547 lat -1.801500 long Bradford, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. d3scr

This awesome animated Banner has been kindly been created by the wonderful @snook

Don’t forget to vote for Witnesses https://steemit.com/~witnesses

You can vote for the Witness team c0ff33a and @derangedvisions if you like what we are doing for people and communities throughout the Steem blockchain - click below to vote easily

If you are uncertain about Witnesses and who to vote for you can set c0ff33a as your Witness Proxy and you will vote for the same Witnesses as I do.

2017 blogging, 2018 Witness, 2019?