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Hat’s out of the bag! Join us for Winter/Summer Bash 2022! 

Grab a hot or cold beverage and join us in the Hat Cafe this year. It’s hat season yet again!

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Another year is coming to an end, making it a time to reflect on the triumphs we celebrated and tribulations we faced. It’s been yet another rough year for many around the world, but a new year is upon us, bringing with it the hopes and dreams of a better future for everyone.

To help kick off the new year with a bit of joy, we’re thrilled to announce it’s time for our annual Winter Bash. Winter Bash (or Summer Bash, for those of you in the upside down) is a fun end-of-year event that’s been a community tradition for over a decade. From December 14 to January 4, we’ll reward you for participating in the community. When you ask, answer, vote, edit, and chat, you’ll earn hats or other accessories for your avatar.

First, we’d like to introduce this year’s Winter Bash 2022 sponsor, Splunk. Splunk delivers full-stack visibility across infrastructure, applications, and business services across any environment in real time. Thanks, Splunk, for the support!

Although we’ve kept the name Winter Bash for our yearly event, we haven’t forgotten our fellow technologists in the southern hemisphere, who are enjoying warmer weather. Just use the “Winter/Summer” toggle on the bottom left of the landing page to change the season to Summer!

The team has been hard at work this year to bring you a smorgasbord of hats to ensure your profile is sporting the latest in Winter Bash fashion. We’ve reimagined some past favorites and added some delightful new hats. But it’s not just the hats themselves we’ve revived and re-envisioned… we’ve done the same with the triggers and have some new secrets waiting to be discovered.

How will you discover those secrets and add hats to your collection? It’s easy! Do what you already do best: participate on the site by asking good questions, providing good answers, voting, commenting, and exploring all Stack Exchange sites! You may be surprised at all the nooks and crannies you discover.

When you complete a challenge, you’re awarded its respective hat. Hats can be worn on your profile image by using our hat tool (details below).

Winter Bash 2022 runs from Wednesday, December 14th, 21:00 UTC to Wednesday, January 4th, 21:00 UTC.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting and wearing your first hat:

  1. Be active on Stack Exchange! Post answers, comments, or questions. If you just want to play around with hats, find a good post and upvote it—that’ll get you your first hat
  1. Click on any hat in the snowflake menu to go to your wardrobe. (You can also access this by going to your profile and clicking the hat icon!)
  1. Select the hat you want, use the handles to customize it to your liking, and save it to show off across the network.

If you want to learn more, please visit the Winter Bash FAQ page!

Happy Winter Bashing to the Stack Exchange community. We wish you luck in your adventures!

P.S. If Winter Bash isn’t your cup of tea this year, as always, Winter Bash has a prominent opt-out option. We understand you may prefer to keep your Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange experience free of distractions. You can opt out of Winter Bash by choosing “No hats for me, please” from the Winter Bash menu at the top navigation toolbar.

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