Christmas is here and the geese are getting fat, please put a penny in the old man’s hat... that popular Christmas jingle is just one of many that puts a smile on one’s face. In a world of doom and gloom, where terror throws its long shadow upon us, saying that this is the season of peace and mirth, of being jolly may sound hollow. After all, we have just seen the most tumultuous of times, the Sydney siege, where hostages were taken in Australia and two people lost their lives.

Even as Australians were coming to terms with a changed Australia, the loss of innocence so to speak, we saw an absolute massacre in Peshawar, Pakistan, where the Taliban killed children of armed personnel and attempted to justify murder. France has been rocked by at least three attacks, with drivers shouting and plowing their vehicles into pedestrians. In India, militants have killed at least 60 people in Assam. It has been a dark December and a bloody run-up to the festival.