No Christmas lights?
Doesn't bear thinking about, especially after a year of seeing giant scars on Mauao and sticky black blobs on the beach.
I'm all for looking after our planet but surely Tauranga's Christmas lights play a small part in the big scheme of things.
Perhaps our correspondent hadn't taken a child around the Christmas Lights Trail before.
I put a message up on the Bay of Plenty Times' Facebook page last week asking if anyone was planning to spoil their pets this Christmas.
According to the results of a survey, Kiwis were planning to spend more on their dogs than on their partners so I wanted to know if Bay people were planning to do the same.
The Facebook message had only been up three minutes when the first comment came through lambasting it as "slightly offensive" given the financial situations of some.
The comment got two likes.
Yes, it's been a tough year and not everyone is going to have their ideal Christmas this time.
But surely as long as we keep these people in our mind and do what we can to make their Christmas Day a happy one, whether by donating our time, goods or money, then we too should be able to have our version of a happy Christmas without feeling guilty.
We've had the February quake, the ongoing tragedy of Pike River and, in our own backyard, Rena, so surely festive cheer is just the thing we need.
Enough of the bah humbugging.
