user708: It's that time of year again! We're once again participating in Winter Bash!
While this is a "just for fun" activity, I've reached out to TLG about it, and it sounds like they are willing to provide a prize for us. The winner will be selected randomly from everyone who earns at least 3 hats on Bricks Stack Exchange. You can track your progress on the Bricks SE leaderboards.
I'm excluding myself and the other mods from this as we may have access to unique hats via moderator-only actions, and we want to have a level playing field. I'm willing to be flexible if the winner already has this set, but otherwise the prize will be the current Winter Holiday Train:

The goal here is to facilitate positive engagement on the site both to celebrate the holidays and because this is the time of year when we get a lot of new traffic from parents and others just getting into LEGO thanks to the holiday shopping season.
My hope is that providing a prize for this will facilitate meaningful engagement on the site. Please don't make useless edits to posts or participate in similar shenanigans just to earn hats. Your actions should provide value to the community.
I will need to provide a report to TLG about what sort of engagement this event helped to facilitate, so if you want to see more of this sort of thing happen in the future, go earn some hats!
Happy holidays everyone!

user3247: 36 Users have 3 or more hats right now!*
How exciting that TLG is recognizing our site as a place to get information about their products!
Let us not let them down!
* excluding three moderators

user708: We had 91 users earn a hat in Winter Bash this year! We hope that you all had fun!
39 users earned at least 3 hats, so excluding the moderators, we had 36 of us eligible for the drawing. About a quarter of those user accounts were created in the last month. It is exciting to see participation from new users, and it looks like this activity may have driven at least a few people to really give our community a try for the first time.
The following users were eligible for the prize drawing:
Alexander O'Mara
David
CalvT븃
JW8
Aziraphale
Phil B.
WELZ
X-27
Crazy Ivan
lee
Nick C
zovits
chicks
yper-trollᵀᴹ
user3667576
Joubarc
Malachi
David Lechner
Stephen
André Fernandes
Michael Verschaeve
Rory Alsop
Móż
Paulski73
Alberto Santos
Wrzlprmft
sampoerna quatrain
SlicksterTheBrickster
Mithrandir
oezi
jknappen
Jan Windemuth
Glorfindel
Josh King
Windfire
RAP 77

For winner selection, I used the random.org list randomizer to sort the above list and used the top result as the winner.
The winner this year is Phil B.! Phil has been a very active member of our community for over three years, and I'm very excited to see this go to him! Congrats!

708: <p>It's that time of year again! We're once again participating in <a href="https://winterbash2017.stackexchange.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Winter Bash</a>!</p>

<p>While this is a "just for fun" activity, I've reached out to TLG about it, and it sounds like they are willing to provide a prize for us. The winner will be <strong>selected randomly from everyone who earns at least 3 hats on Bricks Stack Exchange</strong>. You can track your progress on the Bricks SE <a href="https://winterbash2017.stackexchange.com/leaderboard/bricks.stackexchange.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">leaderboards</a>.</p>

<p>I'm excluding myself and the other mods from this as we may have access to unique hats via moderator-only actions, and we want to have a level playing field. I'm willing to be flexible if the winner already has this set, but otherwise the prize will be the current <strong><a href="https://shop.lego.com/Winter-Holiday-Train-10254" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Winter Holiday Train</a></strong>:</p>

<p><a href="https://shop.lego.com/Winter-Holiday-Train-10254" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/pJpKw.jpg" alt="Holiday Train"></a></p>

<p>The goal here is to facilitate positive engagement on the site both to celebrate the holidays and because this is the time of year when we get a lot of new traffic from parents and others just getting into LEGO thanks to the holiday shopping season.</p>

<p>My hope is that providing a prize for this will facilitate meaningful engagement on the site. Please don't make useless edits to posts or participate in similar shenanigans just to earn hats. Your actions should provide value to the community.</p>

<p>I will need to provide a report to TLG about what sort of engagement this event helped to facilitate, so if you want to see more of this sort of thing happen in the future, go earn some hats!</p>

<p>Happy holidays everyone!</p>
 3247: <h1>36 Users have 3 or more hats right now!*</h1>
<p>How exciting that TLG is recognizing our site as a place to get information about their products!</p>
<p>Let us not let them down!</p>
<p><sub>* <em>excluding three moderators</em></sub></p>
 708: <p>We had 91 users earn a hat in Winter Bash this year! We hope that you all had fun!</p>

<p>39 users earned at least 3 hats, so excluding the moderators, we had 36 of us eligible for the drawing. About a quarter of those user accounts were created in the last month. It is exciting to see participation from new users, and it looks like this activity may have driven at least a few people to really give our community a try for the first time.</p>

<p>The following users were eligible for the prize drawing:</p>

<pre><code>Alexander O'Mara
David
CalvT븃
JW8
Aziraphale
Phil B.
WELZ
X-27
Crazy Ivan
lee
Nick C
zovits
chicks
yper-trollᵀᴹ
user3667576
Joubarc
Malachi
David Lechner
Stephen
André Fernandes
Michael Verschaeve
Rory Alsop
Móż
Paulski73
Alberto Santos
Wrzlprmft
sampoerna quatrain
SlicksterTheBrickster
Mithrandir
oezi
jknappen
Jan Windemuth
Glorfindel
Josh King
Windfire
RAP 77
</code></pre>

<p>For winner selection, I used the <a href="https://www.random.org/lists/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">random.org list randomizer</a> to sort the above list and used the top result as the winner.</p>

<p><strong>The winner this year is <a href="https://bricks.stackexchange.com/users/4181/phil-b">Phil B.</a>!</strong> Phil has been a very active member of our community for over three years, and I'm very excited to see this go to him! Congrats!</p>
