 Happy New Year, Mom and Dad! Happy 25th of December, Mom and Dad! Happy New Year, Jesus! Happy New Year, Family! Happy New Year, Family! Congratulations! Particularly, my constituents of Mykonof. From my family to yours, I extend the warmest season's greetings to you. This season, the words of one of our greatest folklorists, Dame Marie Sely for Cessian Descartes, echo in my mind unconsciousness. It may be because Cessian, like many of our ancestors, understood the true significance of Christmas, more so in our unique Lucian style. Although the disparity in my generation gap may not allow me to experience the extent of an authentic Lucian Christmas fully, given my deep rural heritage in Lapointe, Monropo, I was able to celebrate and understand the depth and meaning of the Siouenal. This experience involved beating drums and the thought that homes, neighbors and communities integrated to celebrate Christ and Christmas. For me, this personified coming together to celebrate the successes of the years past. It signified resilience and perseverance in our daily conduct for months past, while with much hope, resolutions and goals were set for the years ahead. It was not just about drinking rum, eating pork and blood pudding. It was the clean socialization that brought people together to celebrate and remain hopeful. The spirit of house to house represented sharing, bringing together a true sense of community. Regardless of your location, our greatest Lucian holiday traditions are the ones of receiving and giving back. We were known to always look out for each other, lending a hand to a neighbor to slaughter the pig or painting of the house to prepare eggnogs and sorrel was what brought us closer to embracing and appreciating each other. In today's modernized living, we have deviated from these traditions and adopted a culture of celebration with its pros and cons, some of us bringing guns and unwanted attitudes and intentions. While we can celebrate and enjoy Christmas for similar reasons, we have lost the true essence of coming together. This Christmas, I urge you to borrow from past traditions of our generations. Let this Christmas be one of celebration of friends, family and community. Let it be one where we genuinely recognize each other as brothers and sisters. We cannot continue to operate and live in an environment where we fear for our well-being and safety. This Christmas, inspired by our traditions, encourages us to be better citizens and most notably our neighbor's keeper. With COVID-19, the last two Christmas celebrations were challenging as we could not express ourselves as we knew. We were stricken to mask. In some cases, our interactions were limited and confined to communities near us. During a better part of this year, we witnessed global relaxation of COVID-19 protocols which remained to date. We must stay thankful and thank the Almighty for sparing us during this time. Let us use this Christmas, this season, to again reach out to the sick and shitting, the less fortunate and those unable to truly celebrate. To my dear people of McWoodnough, like the rest of the country, we have had to make a lot of sacrifices. The high cost of living has impacted your households, that we continue as a government to put measures in place to cushion the impact of these increases. It is my pledge as your parliamentary representative to be a voice for your needs and aspirations and expectations as we go into a new year. I pray that God will continue to guide us as we work together to build our constituency and by extension our country, St. Lucia. This Christmas and every day, let us reflect on how we can live the Christmas message of hope, peace and community. Camoradayde, Camoradibon ami, Camoradibon ami with profound gratitude, solidarity and hope. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a promising 2023. We wish you all the best, a happy New Year, and we wish you all the best. We wait for you, we work for you, and we will develop Miku because Miku is without us.