The Goan Community in Toronto enjoyed a year and a season others abroad can only dream about.

On December 25 we awoke to a white Christmas with just enough snow to clear the driveway with ease, build a snowman, and go about entertaining relatives and friends in the time honoured manner.

The year-end is also a time to count one's blessings:

• We Goans here can count ourselves among the 44% of Canadians who express satisfaction living here -the highest rating in the western world.
  
  
• We had Youth Day 2002 and were relieved to see the Holy Father make it down from the steps of the plane and inspire us all with his presence, despite the foreboding of pundits who questioned his strength.
  
  
• Many of us are glad we made it here over the past 30 years. The immigration laws for emigrating here are much tougher now. The new laws stress on academic achievement, years of specialized skills,and a job-in-waiting - few of us including our PM would qualify for if we had to do so now. However,it is still relatively easy to qualify to emigrate to Canada.
  
  
• Despite the above, Canada with it's birth rate of less than 1.5%, is heavily dependent on admitting 300,000 immigrants a year to sustain our lifestyle. Hopefully many of these will be our folks from Goa and the Gulf to inject new blood into our own community here. For those of us successfully settled here, we can do more to make the new arrivals feel welcome here.
  
  
• On a lighter note we have enjoyed a wealth of material comforts. Goan delights such as sausages, sorpotel, and Christmas treats were readily available for the early birds. Suppliers were swamped with orders and sold out well before Christmas day.
  
  
• Those who had been good were rewarded with bottles of the celebrated Kingfisher beer from India, and Kenya's famous Tusker lager. Goa Fenny is in the works next year for those who promise to be exceptionally nice.
  
  
• The Goan Community here has a reputation of knowing how to have fun at social events, particularly the New Year's Bash. This year is no exception, and events hosted by the Goan Overseas Association and the Gulf Goan are expected to draw full houses.

The ' Wish List ' compiled by Goan Voice Canada from listening to well-known Goan community leaders include the following:

• That 'just for once' the leaders of the main community groups come down and meet for a 'face to face' talk to establish 'rules of the road' and other agreements so that collectively we can achieve more for our community.
  
  
• We very successfully organized social events and casino trips. We need to use these good organizational skills to do more to advance the common good.
  
  
• That we display more empathy coupled with tangible action for our folks and institutions in Goa.
  
  
• That we acknowledge and commend those working for our community groups (especially our youth).