As this letter is written, our multi-faith staff and volunteers are wrapping Christmas presents for our Safari Multicultural Playgroup children, as is our practice every year.
We see value in acknowledging that not everyone celebrates Christmas and so use greetings such as "happy holidays" or "season's greetings".
These are perfectly acceptable messages used on many greeting cards sent before Christmas and our summer holidays.
In our daily experience, new migrants love New Zealand, our people, the great outdoors, enjoy our traditional customs, and are right there with home-grown Kiwis cheering on the All Blacks.
However, our ARMS clients are from many faith backgrounds just as home-grown Kiwis are, so we respectfully say there is space for us all. For the record, over half of New Zealanders identify themselves as being Christian.
In recent years, there has been a significant increase in people whose religion is non-Christian. Approximately one-third of the population indicate they don't have a religion.
To those who celebrate Christmas, we wish you a very happy Christmas. To those who do not, "season's greetings".
As Dame Susan Devoy rightly said, ARMS works hard to be inclusive and this is an example of that.
Dr Mary Dawson is the chief executive of ARMS Trust
