[cjbprime]

I heard something about a large competitive programming tournament (i.e. a commercial one) happening at a nearby time to AoC, I think it was that for at least one person.

(I also don't think it's unimaginable; lives change, everyone's going to have a point where they played one year and not the next, most obviously illness, but also life changes like marriage, kids, stressful new job, etc?)

[avgcorrection]

All it takes is someone convincing you to take a travel vacation around Christmas so that you are too busy to be competitive. (And maybe you don’t bother to play if you can’t be competitive at it.) Nothing LIVES CHANGE sized has to be the case...