Editorial: Enjoy Christmas with your People of the Year

Have a merry Christmas with your own 2020 Person or Persons of the Year.

It's traditional for Hawke's Bay Today to reveal our Person of the Year on Christmas Eve.
But not this year. The idea of singling out one person in 2020 didn't seem right.

It's been a year during which we have all leaned on our loved ones for support more than ever, as many of us struggled.

Those struggles have been varied - physical health, mental health, the impact of being imprisoned in our homes and let out, to exercise and buy food.

Then there are the financial challenges our business community has faced.

Along with a certain virus, water has caused some headaches in 2020 - the lack of it led to a drought that gave farmers a double whammy.

Then too much of it caused flooding and landslips in Napier, forcing some tenants and home owners into holiday camps for Christmas after their homes were damaged.

We will each have our Person of the Year - I know who mine is, it is my wife.

She is the sort of person that many of us have in our lives, that person who helps us get through the days, the months, the year ... sometimes the minutes.

Our essential workers, particularly those in the health sector, have been outstanding People of the Year. So have our emergency service workers.

To put one person on a pedestal, as Hawke's Bay Today's Person of the Year, seems wrong in 2020 and as nominations came in, we realised, how do we choose between these people, and single one out, after a year like this?.

This year, Hawke's Bay Today would like to acknowledge its readers, and advertisers.

Thank you - you are our People of the Year.

Please have a safe and happy Christmas with your Person or People of the Year.

There's no paper tomorrow, but we'll see you again on Saturday.

Merry Christmas.