After Bondi Beach, Christmas can show human nature at its best

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Editorial

December 24, 2025 — 5.00am

It will be in our children’s eyes. Bright with expectation and sure something magical is about to occur, their smiles are always wider at Christmas.

There would hardly be a child not caught up in the joy of Christmas morning. Their hope makes them beacons of joy able to lift our hearts in this season of hope, even at a time when there seems little reason for such optimism.

Christmas is different in Sydney this year.

A Bondi Beach Christmas in 2023. Will it ever be the same again?

The mass shooting at Bondi Beach that targeted the Jewish community is an obscene crime that has diminished us all. It also brought home a foreign war that shattered beliefs that Australia was a sanctuary from the madness of other conflicts, and left many feeling, for the first time, utterly vulnerable in their daily lives.

In these strangest of days, we can take comfort that in Australia Christmas is for everybody.

Certainly, Christmas has had something of a dual personality: the birth of Jesus shares secular reindeer flights of fancy so that Christians in Australia are no longer alone in celebrating Christmas. However, elements in its celebration express the deepest yearnings and aspirations of all people. It is the idealisation of relationships showing human nature at its best.

As the period of mourning and increased security fades and life returns to some semblance of normality across most of the city, people are coming out again and doing their deferred Christmas shopping and buying those last-minute ingredients.

Tomorrow, many will celebrate. Some will attend church services, sing carols, watch wide-eyed children open presents and revel in family reunions and gift giving and eat Christmas dinners – things that are more real than many of the things we normally see or handle. Others will be alone, but Christmas is the promise of what can be and offers a kind of hope that transcends the feelings, pain, loss and stress.

In the days ahead, as the shadow of the Bondi Beach attack recedes and our public lives resume, many will line the headlands of Sydney Harbour to watch the start of the yacht race or attend the Australia and England Test at the SCG. Or maybe just go to the beach.

Doing ordinary things and sharing the ordinary moments of life are a powerful bulwark against the horror of the Bondi attack.

Getting back to some of the basics carries healing powers that complement the very reason for the season of hope. The Christmas story is first and foremost a binding celebration about the birth of a baby that has come to celebrate and honour humanity’s shared experiences while symbolising new life, fresh starts and unity.

Young children are mostly immune to monstrosities such as the Bondi Beach massacre, yet they are so evident to the rest of the community.

In their innocence, that sense of delight we see most vividly in the face of our children on Christmas morning is a poignant reminder of the responsibility we all share to preserve this world for those who will come after.