How will you remember 2021?
I’ll remember holding my niece for the first time.
I’ll remember a surprise birthday excursion to a beautiful vineyard.
I’ll remember England’s barely believable journey to the final of the Euros.
But…
I’ll also remember the tantalising near-returns to “normality” and the frustration as they slipped away.
I’ll also remember my credit card being cloned.
I’ll also remember another year passing without seeing some of my nearest and dearest.
Writing this list was a cathartic exercise and helps me put 2021 into perspective. The trying times can feel all-encompassing in the moment but, ultimately, it’s the happy memories that’ll stick around.
This point to the fact that, despite the trying times we find ourselves in, there are often more positives to reflect on than negatives. You just have to shine a light on them.
As a company, it’s been a year with more ups and downs than a snowy Alpine mountain pass. But in the spirit of focusing on the positive, here are three things we’re proud of this year:
1. The Fabulous Personalised Gift Generator
Releasing any new product always involves a lot of blood, sweat and tears. The difference with The Fabulous Personalised Gift Generator was the scale of the project.
It can accommodate thousands of different styles of personalised designs, it is available on 8 different products (with more set to be released next year) across 3 different continents.
It has added amazing variety to our shop and, along with our maps and videos, means we are now so much more than The Book of Everyone now (another thing that may need to be addressed in 2022…).
It also gave birth to this beautiful new video. If you’ve not seen it yet, I promise it’s worth spending the next 30 seconds drinking it all in 😉
2. The Book of Everyone Couples Edition
This autumn addition to our library of books is the 17th in our collection but the first that can be made for two people.
Our favourite thing about it is its versatility. It’s a great gift for anyone wanting to celebrate their relationship, but it can also be made by an individual or a group to celebrate an engagement, wedding or anniversary.
With beautiful new page designs and an original twist, we’re sure it will be very popular in 2022, particularly with Valentine’s Day just around the corner.
3. The Beano
Our third achievement involved the development of a new product as well, but it is a new partnership that we are particularly proud of.
The Beano was the favourite comic of many of the staff here when they were kids, so it was a real treat to develop our brand new Wise(ish) Words of Dennis alongside the Beano team.
We hope this will be the start of a long relationship with Dennis and the gang and next year will bring further joint projects.
I’d encourage you to make your own list of things to be thankful for from the past year. It’s important to look ahead, and making resolutions is a great way to meet the New Year with your best foot forward. But those resolutions will be all the stronger if informed by everything that made you happy in the last 12 months.
Thank you to all of our customers and Happy New Year from us all at The Book of Everyone. I hope that 2022 brings, with all its inevitable challenges, lots of joy and laughter.
