The Scoreboard took a couple weeks off to drink eggnog, hang out under the mistletoe and watch C-SPAN on New Year's Eve (just kidding!). But don't worry: It's back with a vengeance in 2013.

Just as we did last year, we'll deliver a list each Friday of the winners and losers in Vermont news and politics. As always, we've consulted with a wide range of people as clueless as we are — and totally arbitrarily aggregated the results below.

So, without further ado, here's The Scoreboard for the week of Friday, Jan. 4 (oh, and all those weeks we missed):

Winners:

Porky Patrick — Those worried that Vermont's going to lose out on federal handouts now that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has turned down the chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee ought to ask Rutland's GE Aviation what they think.

Shap Smith — Rep. Paul Poirer (I-Barre) never stood a chance in his bid to take the reigns from House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morrisville), but his decision to drop out of the race for speaker two weeks ago (as first reported by the Burlington Free Press' Nancy Remsen) lets Smith avoid a messy vote.

Vermont State Employees Association — The state employees' union suffered a staffing setback last fall, but a couple new old hands should help them get back on track — at least within the Statehouse.

Our Sexual Health — Good news: Vermont's gettin' it on safely. Runner-up loser: Burlington, which is only 25th in boozin' it up.

Tie Score

Vermont's Congressional Delegation — On the upside, they dodged a bullet by not having to vote for an Obama/Boehner "grand bargain" that included cuts to popular entitlement programs. On the downside, they had a lousy New Year's Eve and caved on their promises to raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year. The really bad news? They'll have a bunch of tougher votes in the months to come.

Vermont Dairy Farmers — They didn't get the new farm bill that Sen. Leahy and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) fought for on the Senate and House agriculture committees, but at least they got a nine-month extension to the old farm bill in the final fiscal cliff deal.

Armando Vilaseca — Vermont's commissioner of education got to keep his job — and got a fancy new title — but why for only a year?

Losers:

Nepotism — As the Rutland Herald's Gordon Dritschilo reported Friday, recently-resigned Rutland County senator Bill Carris' son, Tracy, is out of the running for his dad's seat. Gov. Peter Shumlin will have to choose one of three candidates — Eldred French, Cheryl Hooker and Robert Baird— to fill the vacant seat.

Vermont State Police — Apparently, Shumlin's security detail didn't get to tag along on his six-day vay-cay to Italy last month, VTDigger.org's Alicia Freese reported Thursday. Arrivederci, po-po!

Vermont Yankee — As VTDigger.org's Andrew Stein reported, UBS Securities thinks Entergy Corp. should shutter Vernon's Vermont Yankee. Safe, clean, reliable... and going out of business?