Christmas Greetings From PA Pundits International – 2021

Christmas 2021

Each and every year I write up these Christmas Day Posts and say that this has been a momentous year. That is usually always the case, but here and now, this year especially, it really has been one of incredible moment, and it was a year that will haunt our memories for a very long time. There has been what can only be described as a huge upheaval in the way we live, and go about our everyday life, and everything about that, due to the terrible scourge of the Coronavirus COVID-19. The political situation has also changed, and some would say, not for the better, and again that is a personal thing, and should not get in the way of how families are when they are around each other. However, life did not stop because of all these things. Life went on, and we soldiered through it, well nearly all of us anyway, and our thoughts and prayers go out to those who have suffered loss because of this awful Coronavirus situation.

So now, at Christmas time, let us take the time to be thankful that, hopefully, we are on the way to some sort of recovery, and what sort of recovery that will be is still playing out. Especially at Christmas, let us think of just our own family, our close family, and our extended family, and also be thankful that we have that family to be with.

The regular contributors at PA Pundits International would like to take this special time to wish you all a wonderful and a peaceful Christmas, and we hope that you can share that day with your own family, because after all, Christmas started out with a family, and it is a time when we should remember this with our own families.

We all hope all our readers have a wonderful time on this Christmas Day. Stay close to your children, or, if you are older, be close to your grandchildren if they are with you, and you’ll see the happiness in their faces. That is what makes us happy, and while there is so much turmoil around us in our own Countries, and also in the wider World, our family, our children, and our grandchildren are what keeps us grounded. Most of you have mobile telephones and these have the facility to take images, so if you are in a position to see the faces of your children as they unwrap their presents, take the time to take some images of them to have a permanent reminder of the joy that all children experience at Christmas.

There is so much in the wider World which gives us cause for concern, so on this day, let’s just forget about that stuff and concentrate on our families, and by doing just that, those wider concerns will fade away, even if just for one day.

Take the time to give thanks for what we have.

Also, remember, this is not The Holidays. This is Christmas.

Have a Blessed Christmas!

The King has come!

Message from TonyfromOz in Australia

Because of the fifteen hour time difference between our home site here at PA Pundits, and me here in Australia, Christmas Day is already half over by the time this gets posted at our site. We’re going to the apartment next door to ours in our apartment building, and that’s where our Son lives with his good lady wife. Our Son has a daughter from a previous marriage, and she will be joining us for the afternoon, so there will only be five of us, perhaps six if our granddaughter brings her boyfriend along with her.

As is the case here in Australia, in the Southern Hemisphere, we are almost in the middle of Summer. Today will be cooler than usual, under full overcast with the possibility of some showers, and perhaps even an evening thunderstorm. The maximum temperature predicted for the day is 28C, and that translates to 82F, so it will still be warm, and the high humidity will probably make it feel a little hotter than it actually is, so the sir conditioner will be turned on for the duration.

We’ll be going next door in a couple of hours from now (as I write this) at around 2PM, and we will all be having an afternoon lunch for our main Christmas meal. The provision of food is shared between our two families, and it was my job this year to provide the chickens. Rather than cook them, we just get them already roasted from the supermarket on the day before, and it doesn’t matter, as they will be served cold with salads, and that is the usual fare for a Christmas in Australia. In the main, seafood is a huge part of Christmas meals all across Australia, and many many Millions of dollars will be spent on seafood in the few days leading up to Christmas Day. When it comes to the chickens and how I got them from the Supermarket, I arrived at the Supermarket at 7AM yesterday morning. I was advised to arrive then to be sure I got those chickens. The lady behind the counter supervising the cooking and prep of those chickens started work at 2AM, loading up the first batch of chickens and by the time I arrived at 7AM, the third batch was in the large cookers. There were already more than 100 chickens already packed to go, and the lady reliably informed me that those 100 cooked chickens would in all probability be gone within an hour. They would cook around 100 chickens at a time, and would be doing that all throughout the day. And each and every supermarket does the same.

Our Son’s wife mentioned also that it would be nice to have a cheese platter as well, and I mentioned I could make a cheese ball for that if she wished. She then said that many year ago, she had an Aunt who made cheese balls. I have a recipe for one that I got from a friend back in 1986, and every so often I make one up, usually for Christmas, but I haven’t done it for a few years now. I used a different aged Cheddar this year, and it tastes probably a little better than I remember. Luckily it was quite large, so in fact I made it into two smaller cheese balls. My own good lady wife is not all that keen on the coating of some mild spices, so I made one with the spice coating, and one without, and we have that with some dry savoury biscuits.

So, on this most special of days, I wish you all a happy and more importantly, a Peaceful Christmas, a day we can all just relax and be with the most important people in our lives, our family.

*****

I also feel sure that those other contributors to the administration of our Blog would also wish you all a Happy Christmas.

Tagged: Christmas 2021, Family

Posted in: Christianity, Personal