Merry Christmas all!

And a look back at 2016.

Marcus Roberts | Dec 16 2016 | comment

Well, all good things must come to an end, and the 2016 Demography is Destiny blog is no exception. So this is the last blogpost of what has been a remarkable year. I started off looking at the migration crisis in Germany and Lebanon. We looked at the demography of US Supreme Court judges in the wake of Justice Scalia's death, Japan's population decline reflected in the official 2015 census results and Lord Sacks' concern that we were witnessing the end of Western Europe.

And then there was Trump and the election and Trump again.

For light relief we looked at the Bunny Book, Iceland's run at Euro 2016, the movie Brooklyn and a unique migration opportunity to a small town in New Zealand's South Island. All in all a busy year on the population/demography front.

New Zealand's summer is just cranking up and now we have a few weeks off for Christmas and New Years' and a summer break. Our family is planning to be with Shannon's family in Auckland for Christmas and then down to visit my family a few days later. We hope you all have a very merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday wherever you are in the world.
Thank you all for reading this year and we look forward to bringing you more posts in 2017...who knows what excitement awaits us next year!!

Dear Readers: The team at MercatorNet wish you and your families a very happy Christmas and New Year. Thank you for staying with us on the journey to becoming one of the internet’s most addictive websites. And a special thanks to all those who have donated recently.

We are closing up shop for a while, until January 9. For now, we hope you enjoy today’s varied Christmas menu – and take Joseph Bottum’s advice for the feast ahead:

Break out into song, if you can. Break out into sentimentality, if you can stand it. Break out into extravagance and vulgarity and the gimcrack Christmas doodads and the branches breaking under the weight of their ornaments. Break out into charity and goodwill. But however you do it, just break out. What other response could we have to the joyous news of the Nativity that God has broken in, smashing the ordinary world by descending in the flesh?