Representing Tardun at the Reunion: (L-R): Des Wright, John Glynn, Betty Morrison and husband Frank Morrison. Also present but not pictured was Mick Monaghan and his wife Edna, plus photographer, Joh

As it arrives in your mailbox, hopefully it will be one of a number of heartfelt Christmas well wishes extended to you and yours this year.

Traditionally, this is a time of year when most of us make a special effort, not only to acknowledge those to whom we feel closest, but also to extend the hand of friendship and goodwill to all humankind.
Christmas get togethers of friends and family offer an opportunity to share companionship, and often food, and to offer our wishes of love, appreciation and care.

To think that the historical origins of this time of celebration, sharing and goodwill date back to an event that occurred more than 2000 years is quite mind boggling.

If nothing else, the fact that these traditions are maintained to this day, gives us reason to hope that our care and concern for humanity will triumph over the ignorance and fears that lead us to harm each other.

It is this theme of “hope” that I want to reinforce in my C-BERS Christmas message this year.
In essence, Christmas celebrates the birth of a child, and the realized potential of who that child became.
As most parents would attest, the birth of a child, particularly a first born, is a momentous occasion.
Vested in that new life lies all the possibility of a future life well lived, but yet to unfold.

It could be said that the birth of any child symbolizes our own individual and collective hope that this child’s future may be better and brighter than that which we may have lived through ourselves. It embodies our heartfelt responsibility, as parents, and as a community, to do all within our power to make this possibility a reality.

Christmas then, is both a celebration of new life, and the possibility of a better life, founded in our love and care for each other.
This possibility is further reinforced in our willingness to embrace the start of a new year as a time for making resolutions for the future, many of which involve a letting go of those habits and practices that may have held us back in the past. Typically, our New Year’s Resolutions are forward looking, invariably positive, and usually characterized by a determination to do better.

A highlight of the day for Tony was the family’s attendance at the local church’s Christmas evening service where the singing and joyful atmosphere still bring back happy memories.
By the time he was 11, Tony was living in Australia as a child migrant. His first Australian Christmas was in 1953, spent at Clontarf and, to Tony’s recollection, was “nothing very special” except that he got a, donated, Christmas present. In the years following, Tony celebrated Christmases with families in either Collie or Bridgetown who opened their homes to provide some Christmas cheer to children like him. He remembers these times with gratitude to the kind families who did their best to make him feel welcome.
But even the happiest of memories from Christmases past pale into insignificance when Tony speaks of Christmas celebrations spent with his own family.

Once again this year, Tony will play Father Christmas donning his red suit and beard, laden with Christmas presents to pay a “surprise” visit first thing in the morning to the home of his young grandchildren. (This year, however, he suspects the canny youngsters may realise that it is really their grandpa camouflaged behind the disguise!). Later in the day the Pavia family - Tony and Judy, Jason and wife Carol, Sharyn and husband Byron with children Kayley and Tom, plus Judy’s nephews and young cousins, will gather at the family home in Mahogany Creek for a traditional roast turkey with all the trimmings. To conclude the celebration, fun and games for the children, courtesy of the adults.