"All it takes is one kind word to warm three winter months. He who does not find the spirit of Christmas in his heart as the New Year fast approaches, opened his presents at Christmas, but not his heart. Good intentions can never be enough to endure a full year. A person says a lot of things in summer that the don't mean in winter.
I give thanks for the year which is soon ending. There have been times during 2015 when I have been disheartened by mankind's cruelty to his fellow man, but such occasions have been far less in number when compared to the good deeds I have witnessed being carried out between one neighbour and another.
2015 has been a hard and difficult year for so many people across the world. Countries have been ravaged by civil war, millions of people have been killed and an absence of food and access to clean water has affected many. 2015 has witnessed mass displacement of populations followed by the greatest exodus of people ever counted; people fleeing their homeland in search for a safer place to live. Such dangerous journeys have been made across seas in overcrowded and unsafe crafts in which many have died. Many of the lucky ones who survived the sea crossing then marched hundreds of miles across Europe with their aged and young family members still haven't found homes for the future.
Back inside Great Briton, millions of people facing their own levels of austerity and mounting debt have depended on cardboard boxes as blankets for their cold nights on the streets; others have relied on food banks to feed them along with inadequate and overpriced rented accommodation to house them. During the months ahead they face many uncertainties, but for today and the remainder of this Christmas week, they place their worries to one side and do all that they can to make their children's Christmas as happy as they possibly can.
Soon, the New Year of 2016 will be upon us. Please give each of us the strength to continue to see all the goodness that still surrounds us, whatever our circumstances and to touch the hope that only shared love and human consideration is bound to bring. A happy and blessed New Year everyone." William Forde: December 30th, 2015."