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Happy Christmas from my family and me to you and your family, and to friends with whom you may be spending Christmas. Or, if you are spending Christmas on your own, Happy Christmas from me to you.

We've been in Bermuda for a full year now and 2008 has been quite a year. There have been times of celebration and there have been times of sorrow. There have been times of real sadness in two areas, the first being every time that we've heard about another road accident, particularly since most of the accidents which have led to people losing their lives have involved young people on motorbikes.

This time of year our hearts go out to families and friends of those people, who were hoping to spend a Christmas different from the one it will turn out to be. Our thoughts are with them, and there are too many of them.

Just as shocking, if not more so, are the number of people who've been killed in murders in Bermuda over the last 12 months.

Our thoughts are very much with the families and the immediate friends of the people who've been murdered, many of them again young people who deserved to live much longer lives and who were cut short. Theirs will be a rather different Christmas.

Away from that tragic gloom, there is a natural concern, about the economy. An economic recession is sweeping North America, Western Europe and elsewhere. It is bound to affect Bermuda, bound to affect the tourism and it may affect the financial services industry, too. It's natural that as the year comes to an end, people should be pondering on the consequences.

Hopeful signs

But even in these areas of gloom or concern there are some hopeful signs. The last couple of months have seen the police put another 40 constables out on duty and that should mean that there are more patrols on the road. That should mean more checking up on areas of potential crime in general.

Forty constables in a small community like ours is a good number and we wish all of them well, whether they are Bermudian, Caribbean or from elsewhere. Over the ghastly murders at least there has been, in each case I think, an arrest and someone has been charged who is awaiting trial. We should see those trials in 2009. I hope those trials will bring some comfort to the people most directly affected.

The bedrock of the financial services here, insurance and reinsurance, are two areas of economic financial activity which are less affected, I think, by Wall Street than by other factors, notably the weather down in the Gulf of Mexico and the hurricanes that blow there. So, the effect on the financial services here may not be as stressful. It will certainly be different and we hope it will be less drastic than in some other financial centres.

But there are causes for celebration too; strong celebration I hope people will agree. We remember a rather splendid football victory down in Trinidad earlier in the year, which people justifiably celebrated here in Bermuda. We remember some sterling performances and efforts by Bermuda's athletes in the Olympics in China in the summer.

And we remember a rather good performance by Bermuda's sailors in the race down from Newport, Rhode Island. Away from the sporting arena I think many Bermudians were proud, and I hope that the whole island was proud, of the way that over 50 people volunteered overnight after Grand Turk was hit by a hurricane.

They volunteered to go down there with the Bermuda Regiment, to help to clear up and to help to restore some semblance of normal life for the poor people of Grand Turk. I think that the Bermuda Regiment should be applauded and all the volunteers applauded for the way that they leapt to that call for help.

This is a time of year when people try to put to one side the issues of current affairs and even concerns about the economy or whatever, and think about family and think about the original family, the original family which started Christianity as we know it just over 2000 years ago.

People will have their own reflections, and they do not need me to echo what they may be hearing from the pulpit if they go to church or what they may be thinking to themselves if they are not church goers. That is the essence of Christmas. That was the start, the reason for Christmas, the story of that family over 2000 years ago.

So I hope people enjoy time with their own family this Christmas. I hope that people whose family and friends cannot be with them in Bermuda have a chance to be in touch with them and to think about them wherever they are, in North America or elsewhere in the world. The wish from my family and me is that everyone in Bermuda has an enjoyable Christmas, a safe New Year and a bit of prosperity in 2009.[[In-content Ad]]

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