Even in high-ceilinged open plan homes like the one I live in you feel it.

There’s a heaviness in the air when the weather turns like this that reminds me of Christmases past where afternoon thunderstorms bucketed down day after day.

At night, choruses of frogs set against the high-pitched hum of cicadas penetrate even the deepest sleep.

Children stir, the salt and sand missed by distracted bathing irritating skin made sensitive by the first intense week of summer holiday sun.

Adults toss and turn, auditing their incomes and expenditures and check listing the things that need to be done in the build up to the big day.

Out west drought-ravaged farms are bursting with new life and farmers, who only weeks ago despaired for their futures, look forward with new hope.

The weather forecasters have been talking cyclones, and the signs are there.

Global leaders are now taking climate change seriously and it appears ever so likely that our old ways are about to change.

Elsewhere the inevitable debate about the real meaning of Christmas is stirred. The pious bemoan our distractions, the lack of focus on the real meaning of the season, and wonder when we will give ourselves up to the power of one.

Psychologists say that if religion hadn’t given us Christmas we would have needed to invent something like it to give life’s constant struggle a season, a cycle of order and expectation. Retailers, geared for the biggest spend on record, would probably agree.

And, all around us, pieces of the big puzzle demand explanation where there is none other than the certainty that with life, so too comes death.

The ill-defined belief systems of some golfers and holy rollers may confuse us that an almighty being determines our worthiness for success, riches and life.

That’s a logic that plays poorly against the indiscriminate ways that death defines each of our moments on earth. In this past two weeks here, lives have been lost in the most horrendous of circumstance and others, one moment seemingly healthy and full of spirit, are fighting to retain their grip.

“Why me, some ask, why them others ponder”.

It’s the wonder of our humanity that, despite the statistical inevitabilities that determine all these things, we care.

The season brings focus to those who have fallen through the cracks of our society’s prosperity and who can’t pull together the basic elements of a normal life let alone meet the added expenses of the moment.

This past year’s example of that humanity’s strength on the Sunshine Coast has been enhanced, rather than muted by the distractions of the season.

Most days this newspaper, through stories tagged Community Spirit, celebrates examples of our concern for each other.

That coverage scratches the surface of the daily acts of kindness that, despite some of the rubbish that comes with our rapid growth, still define this special place.

Literally scores of people have responded with offers of accommodation for a family whose plight was highlighted in our Sunday paper. More than 900 Christmases have been made brighter through this paper’s Adopt a Family partnership with Coast welfare agencies.

Elsewhere, unreported, hands are reaching out to help others in their time of need or distress.

Whether the motivation that drives this be service to a higher being or just basic compassion, the result is a society whose values reach way beyond the benefits of our locality.

The real test in the new year for those who will seek to guide the region’s future is how they will manage growth without losing those values to the inevitable vanities, ambitions and greed of those who just don’t get it.

As I write this in the early hours of Tuesday morning the small beginnings of a new swell are rumbling on the beach down the road, the frogs have quietened and the night air has finally cooled.

I’d like to thank all readers who have shared this conversation with me during the past 12 months for your indulgence.

As always it’s been a privilege to be given the space to offer my particular views on all manner of things. I thank those who have afforded me that opportunity.

May I wish every one of you a safe festive season and the hope that life and family bring you as much joy and pleasure as I experience.

Merry Christmas.