There is this mad rush to finish pending business as people party and get ready to go on holiday. What cannot be finished gets put off till next year.

The long storm flooded the streets and emptied the shops so these now are swamped with people buying Christmas presents.

In short, save but for the few unfortunates who cannot stop working, like people in hospitals, the bus system, etc., the country now shutters up for Christmas, maybe for two weeks for the really fortunate.

For most it is a welcome break after the hustle and the bustle of life and work. Maybe it is also a time for expensive and maybe unneeded presents.

It is also a time for family gatherings but these tend to be a mixed bag - good for some people but a bore for others. Some people get to welcome the new year and renewed work with unbridled enthusiasm.

The end of the year brings with it a tentative appreciation of the year that is ending.

On the widest political level it was a year marked by two unplanned events - the Brexit success in the UK and Donald Trump's victory in the US elections.

The old order changeth and yields place to the new. The world at end 2016 is a very different world from the world that began the year.

It has been called the year of the demagogue, and next year, with Marine Le Pen waiting in the wings, it promises to be worse.

It has been a year which, apart from these reverses, has seen Europe struggle on to repair the damage caused by the 2008 crisis and the still insecure foundations of the euro.

Locally, it has been a year that continued what had come before it: a government secure in its huge majority, working to implement its electoral commitment. Now in the fourth year of its five-year term, the government has implemented its promise of cheaper electricity while the gas power station has yet to begin functioning. The building blocks of this new plant are now coming together, one at a time.

The Maltese economy has continued to experience strong growth which has attracted the attention of greater countries still tied down to anaemic growth. As we show in this issue, this has attracted praise from none other than the International Monetary Fund.

One would be foolish however to disregard the warnings written in the same IMF conclusion especially as regards the restructuring of Air Malta and the dependence of the banks (and we add of significant sectors of the Maltese economy) on the construction industry. Care must be taken to ensure this sector does not get overheated as the explosion of construction all around us can lead one to fear.

On the political level, the polarization between the parties has continued, and with the approaching elections, is getting worse also because of the many scandals that have come to be associated with the government's main figures.

As we could see right up to Tuesday night, while the carols were filling the Valletta streets and the country's leaders were preaching peace and solidarity in unison, inside the House of Representatives tempers were frayed and strong words uttered.

At the same time, there is a growing section of the Maltese population that is giving up on politics and politicians while an enormous number of Maltese citizens (to say nothing of migrants and illegals) face poverty. And as we say in today's issue, while labour costs in the EU rose by 1.5% in the euro area and by 1.9% in the EU28 in the third quarter of 2016, in Malta over the same third quarter of this year, labour costs decreased by 2.1%,