It's December 25th. No days left on the Advent calendar, Santa Claus has finished his

trip around the world, and another Christmas day has arrived. Maybe as you're listening to this,

you're in your Christmas pajamas, or resting on the couch at the end of the day. Either way, I want to

thank you for joining the sixth annual Christmas Past year in review.

This is where we celebrate together one last time for the season

and take a look back at all of the sights and sounds and current events

that made Christmas what it was this year.

Starting tomorrow, Christmas of 2021 belongs to Christmas past.

Well, for the second year in a row, casting a shadow over Christmas was the pandemic.

Things were starting to look good in the spring and summer, and then in August,

just around the time when most of us would have been making travel plans, along came the Delta

variant, and a few months later, just in time for Christmas, came

Omicron. But even before that, we'd already been hearing about how the pandemic was creating

shortages, supply chain interruptions, and inflation. Many items were harder to find,

shipments took longer than usual, and even candy canes were reportedly in short supply,

though I personally had no trouble finding

some for myself.

And we've been hearing the last few seasons about Christmas tree shortages.

This year was no different.

And we also heard about canceled events, like the famous Christmas market in Munich, and

as recently as a couple of weeks ago, the Netherlands went into strict lockdown. Now even having said all of that, I should note that things are actually much better this

year than they were last year, but it probably will take a few more Christmases before everything

...