I watched Queen Elizabeth's Christmas Address this year on YouTube and recalled hearing her messages in decades passed. Her first formal televised address was back in 1957, when television was still somewhat a novelty.
Considering she turns 90 this coming year, it is quite a tremendous accomplishment that she continues to write and deliver these annual greetings with such vigor. The only head of state that I know of that comes even close to her longevity is Fidel Castro - and he is starting to fade.
Their longevity is due no doubt in both cases to the fact that they cannot be voted out of office. We generally take a dim view of Presidents for Life, but for the Queen and the Pope, it seems to work. Probably because they have no temporal power.
In our family, my mother always made a point of hearing the Queen's address every Christmas morning. It was a different age back then. You had to be there if you wanted to catch her comments. Nowadays, you can get the Queen's comments on YouTube at your leisure. The first "wireless" broadcast Christmas address occurred in 1932 and was written by Rudyard Kipling.
Kipling, among other poems, wrote The Jungle Book and The Man Who Would be King, which were both later on made into feature films. Aspects of Kipling's work were adopted by the Boy Scouts with the "wolf pack" becoming the basic unit of scouting. Kipling's Law of the Jungle was "the strength of the Pack is the Wolf and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack." The Scouting motto of "Be Prepared" would have been very apropos in 1932 with the dark clouds of National Socialism gathering in Germany.
This year, the Queen spoke of her relation to certain Christmas traditions. She mentioned her great, great grandfather, Prince Albert, organized the first Christmas tree and how the practice spread. (She also mentioned that Albert started the tradition of having an angel atop the Christmas tree, but the rational the Queen gave differed from the more common story involving Santa Claus and the littlest angel.)
The Queen referred to the dark periods that have occurred over the past year, but spoke of all those lighting candles of hope. She quoted from the Gospel of John that "light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it."
It is wonderful to see the attempt in Canada to provide refuge to those who have been driven from their homes in Syria. The number promised by the Liberals was a campaign utterance and unlikely to be achieved. (They will no doubt offset falling short on the refugee numbers by generating a much larger deficit than estimated.)
With the ongoing horror show that is the Middle East, it is, as the Queen says, important to light a candle of hope against the darkness, but to also remember Kipling and Be Prepared.
We wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year - and if it isn't prosperous, enjoy it anyway.
Tom Siba is a former Publisher of the Delta Optimist.
