Three thousand is about the collective number of Christmases that the members of the Probus Club of Blayney have celebrated in their lifetimes.
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Not all as Probus members, of course, but throughout the span of their lives from childhood, to adult and parenthood, to Probushood, maybe as grandparents and great grandparents.
So many individual experiences of one celebration.
What is Christmas and how has it changed ?
Some now try to refer to the passage of time as CE ( common era ) and BCE ( before common era ) instead of AD and BC, but either way, Jesus Christ has been the turning point of human history.
In our society, we celebrate his birth 2016 years ago with Christmas and with New Year’s Day to start 2017 AD.
Despite the commercialisation of Christmas which encourages us to express our thanks by way of many expensive gifts, we give thanks to our God, to our family and friends for loving and supporting us, to those including volunteers who have provided services to us, to the working members of our society who fund our social welfare and make our Australian society safer and more rewarding than many other countries.
In our increasingly technological existence, we seem to have lost many of the personal contacts of life.
We don’t send or receive as many letters and Christmas cards but many more emails.
We used to leave a couple of bottles of beer in the dunny-out- the-back for the nightsoil man or in the letter box for the postie, but it is hard to email a stubby to a call centre operator in some third world country or flush one down the sewer to some stranger at the other end of the pipe network.
Probus is maybe a remnant of the dinosaur age where real people can get together in a real place to share their real lives.
For our generation, we are thankful that organisations such as Probus and their members who continue to enhance the quality and security of our lives by sharing their lives with us.
The final meeting for 2016 will be our Christmas luncheon on Thursday 15 th December at the Royal Hotel in Blayney, commencing at 11-30 for 12-30 lunch.
The next general meeting will be on Thursday 16th February 2017 at 10am and at Blayney Uniting Church hall.
Nominations are called for office bearers and committee for the 2017-18 year and need to be submitted in writing to the Secretary by the February meeting.
Probus is for active retirees who join together to keep their minds active, expand their interests and enjoy friendships.
We wish you a very merry Christmas shared with your loved ones.
