Christmas cheer is in as scant supply as market confidence at the moment. The economic crisis has led to pessimism about the future abroad and at home. If people are not losing their jobs, they are being forced to work and earn less - aware that the sword of Damocles casts an ominous shadow. A number have lost savings and, after a prolonged period of prosperity, are concerned about their future.

If we have learned anything from this crisis, it is that no island is an island - even though we have so far been spared its most brutal consequences. In the globalised world, what happens in one nation affects another and that is likely to become more evident to us in the coming year, particularly if tourism from our core market - the UK, where the pound sterling has tumbled - falls into decline.

Meanwhile, the Malta Employers' Association has predicted a bleak time for shops over the festive period. Retailers are saying that people are not spending as much as they used to and that they are more likely to look than to touch. Undoubtedly, people have become more conscious about what they do with their money.

While Malta's shop owners have moaned about this, their British counterparts have acted. They brought forward the post-Christmas sales to offer their customers bargains before rather than after the big day. As a result their sales have actually increased over the same period last year. In this country, greed means there is no let-up in the quest for the quick buck. We should be grateful to the prevailing atmosphere if this is suddenly not working.

But hopefully what has happened in recent months can have a much more profound effect on the way we approach this period. Rather than merely rushing around to buy what our nearest and dearest probably do not want or need, we can take the opportunity to pause and reflect on what all this is about.

In his last general audience of the year, Pope Benedict pointed out that Christmas risked losing - some would say has already lost - its spiritual meaning because people have reduced it to a mere commercial occasion to buy and exchange gifts.

Yet the Pope has also sensed an opportunity felt by a growing number of people in recent months: that the current difficulties, uncertainty and economic crisis experienced by many families can "truly serve as a stimulus for rediscovering the warmth of the simplicity, friendship and solidarity" that are - he might just as easily have said 'should be' - the typical values associated with this period. He added: "Christmas is an encounter with a new-born baby, wailing in a wretched grotto." Quite a few people at the moment can relate to that.

The Pope did not couch his message in mystical language, but used terms which everybody could understand: "Even non believers perceive something extraordinary and transcendental, something intimate that touches our hearts in this yearly Christian event. It is the festivity that sings of the gift of life. The birth of a child is always a joyful occurrence."

Indeed it is. The birth of this child in particular marked a turning point in the history of humanity. Many hope that this year it will do so again. Happy Christmas.