2022 was another tough year. The third tough year to be exact. From March 2019 onwards one daresay no year has been not tough.

What is tough means different for everyone, for every organisation, and every country.

What is tough is variable at a macro and micro level also.

So we had undeclared Covid, more got ill from Covid, but we all carried on and persevered and didn’t cast a sideway glance on the daily infection stats.

The economic scenario continued to vex – staffing shortages every business knows about them – things are so bad there is a shortage of Santas for Christmas…. Couple that with Supply Chain constraints due to the War in Ukraine and Central Banks in many countries  applying the sledge hammer on interest rates and you have a perfect economic maelstrom brewing for 2023 to match the one in 2022.

This Christmas my Christmas wishes include the grinch to take Christmas from Putin so the children of Ukraine can have some sanity this Christmas.

Christmas in Ukraine, as Volodymyr Zelinski said in his speech to US Congress – we light candles not because it is romantic but because our families have no electricity from Putin’s missile strikes…

We all need to think of a Ukraine Family Christmas, when we sit down for Christmas celebrations with near and dear ones…

It is very difficult to feel merry for Christmas when one thinks of the families of Ukraine and their condition this Christmas.

Spare a moment this Christmas also to reflect on Christmases might have felt in Auschwitz and the other death camps in 1941 through to 1944….

This Christmas I am dumb founded by retail spending that will exceed $21.5 billion in Australia despite the relentless increases in cost of living. I am sorry but the retail spend for Christmas is obscene when so many cannot afford food on the table or a roof over their head.

This Christmas I pray again for Santa to bring presents for the forgotten children in Syria and Turkey who are spending another Christmas in refugee camps.

This Christmas I pray for a miracle for the women of Afghanistan who are now banned from even attending university.

So while we all go on a well deserved break, over indulge on chocolates, pavlova and other good food and spend special time with family and friends let us all hope and pray for a ‘normal 2023’ and if there is no normal 2023 then the resilience to survive a 4^th not so normal year.