Opinion

I feel more confident about the future of Estevan than I did at the start of the year.

Entering the Christmas season, we knew the organizations that assist others in the community were going to face a greater need than ever before. We just didn’t know how great the need would be.

Many business owners I talked to this year said they were thinking about closing offices for the holidays, so many of us are going to get real holiday time off. While the time off will be real, it definitely won't be traditional.

If ever there was a tough Christmas, at least for a lot of us, it will be Christmas 2020. I won’t really miss the work involved in putting up and taking down the tree but that’s only because no one can come to share its beauty with us.

“Well, it looks like it will be him and me around the tree,” the woman said pointing to her husband with a smile. “We’ve done it before, we can do it again,” she explained as we talked about Christmas plans.

As we approach Christmas, Saskatchewan remains caught in the middle of an epicentre of rising COVID-19 cases. To the east of us, Progressive Conservative Premier Brian Pallister announced Manitoba’s lockdown measures will extend past Christmas.

Cheers: Cheers to local merchant Jenny Joans for waiving the cost on a toque that was being purchased by a cancer patient. A very thoughtful gesture. Cheers to all the Estevan Mercury carriers. They deliver us a free community paper every week.

The approval and early roll-out for a COVID-19 vaccine is the best news we’ve had in the nine-plus months since COVID-19 restrictions first came into effect. Health Canada has approved Pfizer’s vaccine for COVID-19.

I love giving gifts. I like searching for them, and finding something that might be not a first necessity (however, I usually try to ask if there is anything a particular person needs or wants beforehand), but will make people smile when they unwrap.

If you thought the federally-forced carbon tax was bad before, it keeps getting worse. The federal Liberals announced its plans Friday to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. That actually should be a good thing.