AND so it’s all over: the hype, the panic-buying, the craziness and overindulgence associated with the Christmas season.

The real message and purpose of Christmas is often overshadowed by secularism and commercialisation.

The older this columnist gets, the shorter the year seems to become.

In a few days’ time, we will enter a new year.

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Patricia MacBride: Blaming Palestinian flags for division avoids the real issue

As a rule, I am a glass-half-full type of guy. Like Wilkins Micawber in David Copperfield, I live in the permanent expectation that “something will turn up”.

That said, with all the political madness, violence and disruption of 2025, my half-glass-full attitude has been truly tested.

2025 was an awful year, and according to a recent poll, most people are not entering 2026 with any real sense of optimism.

The western political world has been hijacked by a manipulative, perverse, self-serving, anti-democratic set of xenophobes with vested interests in creating political and economic chaos and profiting from it. What is worse, they are doing it in plain sight.

Trump is only the visualisation and vocalisation of the extent of their........

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