The ICTP will close its facilities for the winter break from Friday 21 December to Monday 7 January. The next issue of Highlights will be published in mid January. ICTP's first activity next year will be the Joint ICTP-INFM School in "High Performance Computing on Linux Clusters" to be held 31 January-15 February. On behalf of the Centre's staff and scientists, we wish all of our colleagues and friends a happy and healthy holiday season and a peaceful new year.