As the New Year approaches, it's time to look back and recognize that skateboarding was alive and well in 2012. In 2011, Grant Taylor won Thrasher Magazine's Skater of the Year, but it wasn't until early in 2012 that Taylor's SOTY video dropped and blew everyone away. In addition to Taylor's video, the list of skate happenings in 2012 was huge. We saw 12-year-old Tom Schaar spin a 1080, David Gonzales release his "Possessed to Skate" video part, David Gravette do a backflip on the cover of TWS, Elissa Steamer get an "Epicly Later'd" episode and the return of Bastien Salabanzi in Street League. But that wasn't everything. Rob Dyrdek bought Alien Workshop, Jason Jessee started skating again and joined the Converse team, the career of Gary Rogers was launched alongside the start of "Skateline", Baker released a new video and Dylan Rieder appeared in Vogue Magazine.

Happy New Year, and remember: whatever you do the first day of the year is what you'll be doing all year round -- so go skate!