Opinion: Rotorua, you're amazing!

Salvation Army corps officers Ralph and Kylie Overbye are grateful for Rotorua's help.

Wow. There was genuine delight when the final tally from this year's Rotorua Daily Post Salvation Army Foodbank Christmas Appeal was announced in the newsroom yesterday afternoon.

Not only had you - the people of Rotorua - bettered last year's fantastic effort, but you smashed it! You donated just over $55,000 worth of food, cash and gifts.

Thank you to every single man, woman and child who donated. Whether it was one can, $1 or the gift of time to support or organise the various fundraisers that have run over the past weeks, thank you.

Thanks to you, no one in Rotorua needs to go hungry this Christmas and the shelves at the foodbank will be looking healthy as we head into 2017.

It's undoubtedly been a tough year for many in our community. This year we have brought you heartbreaking and infuriating stories of people struggling to get by, living in cars and unable to find homes.

On the flipside, we have also brought you heartwarming stories of groups and individuals in our community doing their best to change that situation.

My hope as we go into 2017 is the positive stories outweigh the negative, and as a community we continue to step up to help each other.

So, tomorrow is Christmas Day. I admit it's been a slow-burner for me, that Christmassy feeling only started to kick in on Thursday evening when I borrowed a friend's child (she was a willing participant, I should add) and drove around some of the homes all lit up as part of the Professionals Christmas Lights trail.

Again, wow! I don't know who was more impressed, the 6-year-old or me.

The effort the participants have gone to is quite something, as were the results.

The 6-year-old had a bespoke scorecard, with options including "just okay" through to "I love it!". She's a tough judge, but by the time we called it quits there were mainly "I love its" circled.

Clearly we were not the only ones who thought so. At each home, there were up to 10 people stopped, on some of those narrower streets it was almost like Queen St on rush hour.

So another thanks - this time to all those who put in the time, effort and money (think of the power bills!) to bring us such simple joy. If you haven't done it yet, I highly recommend it, there is still time. And you don't even need a child to do so, big kids will love it too.

This is my last editorial for 2016, so I would like to thank all our readers for reading, for giving us your feedback and for inspiring us to keep writing great local stories.

To those who have to work this Christmas (including many of my colleagues), I hope you manage a restful break later this summer. To those who are now on holiday - woo hoo!

Merry Christmas, stay safe and bring on 2017!