May your holiday season sparkle with joy and the new year shine with success! Wishing you health, happiness, and prosperity for the upcoming year.

The ACFP office will be closed on the following days during the holidays: December 25 December 26 January 1

What's New at ACFP and In Health Care The First Five Years committee wants your opinion on transitioning into practice. Access the poll and have your voice heard here. Additional learning opportunities available at the ASA! Check out the details for Thursday's pre-conference sessions now. Save the date for the second annual LeadFM conference! Make time to acknowledge excellence in family medicine and nominate someone today! In other news: CPSA releases article on Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss.

President's Message Looking back on 2017, the ACFP invested in advocacy, leadership, and education and, through that, we supported you and your teams in the delivery of care for your patients. From successful conferences and CPD events to timely responses to current health care crises and avenues to engage our family physician colleagues, the ACFP accomplished a number of notable things in 2017. Read on to see my Top 10 moments for the past year.

Register today for the 63rd ASA! Registration is now open! Join us at the Alberta College of Family Physicians' 63rd Annual Scientific Assembly, March 2-4, 2018, in Banff, Alberta! We now offer several registration types to fit the ASA attendee. We also offer prorated registration options for those who cannot attend the full conference or are just interested in attending our pre-conference courses. Choose from many relevant and thought-provoking topics such as: Medical cannabis Addictions Reconciling indigenous health Transgender health Fort McMurray wildfire follow-up ... and so much more. See pages 6-9 in the Preliminary Program to choose your favourites or visit the ASA website . The ACFP's ASA—Education for Family Docs by Family Docs! Start your registration now!

What happens when you stop believing in Santa Claus? Are children upset when they stop believing in Santa Claus? Turns out, not as much as you might think they would be. Where children experience minimal distress when they stop believing in Santa, parents actually have more negative feelings (40% sad versus 6% glad) when the transition to disbelief occurs. While it remains unclear if using Santa's naughty/nice list to encourage good behaviour actually yields the intended results, there does appear to be evidence that the closer it gets to Christmas, the happier children become. Read more in this month's CFP.

Tools for Practice publishes milestone 200th article! With a sample size of 200, the evidence is clear: family physicians find Tools for Practice valuable. But we want to hear from you! What has been your favourite article? How has Tools for Practice impacted you and/or your practice? Let us know through Twitter (use the hashtag #ToolsForPractice), on Facebook (follow "Alberta College of Family Physicians"), or in the comments section on this post . To celebrate this momentous occasion, we asked the team to tell us about their favourite article(s). Find out what they had to say!

Thank you to all of our committee members! From all of us to all of you, thank you for all your work over the past year. To all committee members, we couldn't do the things we do without you: ACFP Board of Directors, Governance Advisory Committee (GAC); Finance and Audit Committee (FAC), Membership Advisory Committee (MAC); Awards and Recognition (Awards) and First Five Years in Family Practice (FFYFP) Committees, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Committee; Annual Scientific Assembly (ASA), LeadFM: Alberta Family Medicine Leadership Conference, and Practical Evidence for Informed Practice (PEIP) Conference Committees.

Alberta College of Family Physicians | www.acfp.ca | 780-488-2395