The Christmas and New Year’s season is always a bit of a strange time here at GetReligion, with people coming and going and getting their work done when they can. We do strive to take a few days off, of course. Sort of.

Frankly, this year is going to be extra strange.

Regular readers may have noticed the recent post in which I explained that, as of Jan. 1, GetReligion will have a new home base. Let me repeat some of that information, in case some people missed it. This will help explain some of the extra strangeness in the next few weeks:

For several years now, I have known that I would retire from full-time work here at GetReligion when the clock struck midnight and we reached Jan. 1, 2020. The question — logically enough — was whether this weblog would shut down or evolve back into something that I could do part-time, which was how things started out long ago.

The good news is that, well, we ain’t dead yet. The bad news is that we will have to do some major downsizing. … Readers will not be surprised to know that — a sign of the times in which we live — the work we will be doing here in the future will require some fundraising. …

But the big news today is that GetReligion will soon have a new home base, one linked directly to First Amendment studies, which means work tied to freedom of the press and freedom of religion.

As of Jan. 1, we will be based at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, which is next door to the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi. The chairman of the center is Charles L. Overby, for 22 years the CEO of the Freedom Forum, a non-partisan foundation focusing on the press, religious freedom and the First Amendment.

Or, as I summed things up at the end, we are talking “journalism, the First Amendment, good friends and barbecue.”

However, a big question remains — because of the role that fundraising now plays in our future. That question: What will GetReligion look like after Jan. 1?

It may take a few weeks to sort that out, in part because of the many logical complications caused by holiday breaks here and there, including at the University of Mississippi Foundation. People are coming and going all over the place.

To be blunt: I know that some people have been using the new fundraising page for the GetReligion projects at the Overby Center (the blog, our podcasts and some public forums that will almost certainly end up posted online in video form). But I do not, at this point, know the results and how that will impact our budget.

We are, at the moment, sorting out some logistics for that foundation account, in terms of who can monitor the results. Their are digital boxes that need to be checked before I know some crucial facts. That affects planning, of course.

If you have already made a donation, thank you! If you haven’t done that yet, there’s still time before Jan. 1 to get that done (think tax breaks in 2019) and help me plan GetReligion content in the New Year.

I will be here part-time, no matter what (sort of like the early years of the blog long ago). We already know that Bobby Ross will be writing a new weekly round-up feature for Religion UnPlugged and we will run that here on Sundays.

How much will other team members be able to contribute? We will see.

Thanks to all who have helped. And hang in there with us during the strange weeks ahead. Now, where did I put that file of reactions to that Christianity Today editorial about you know who?