It's now officially the holiday season. We've been getting press releases in from all the social agencies in our region gathering food and gifts for the needy among us. Meanwhile, we're starting to refocus, after the elections, on continuing signs of change and progress in our area. Real estate's doing better than expected. College continues to be a growing aim for many of our students, with counselors suggesting that what many see now as job opportunities may not be worth as much as the chance to learn to levels where real options remain open for one. Which means four year colleges as well as two, and the unspoken push on for those especially driven to get post-graduate degrees as well.

Just as we were going to press we heard that Preet Bharara, the state's gung-ho regional U.S. prosecutor who's been so successful at weeding out state corruption, has been asked to stay on. Good news? We think so, as do many around the region hoping he eventually shifts attention from Albany to our area.

But you know what's really gotten our attention? The fact that hundreds of churches around the country have taken it upon themselves to offer sanctuary to scared undocumented migrants being threatened with deportation, just as a majority of our largest, most important cities have.

Is this good or bad, patriotic or anti-American. To us, that's similar to the inner Catholic Church battle going on to reign in the new pope because they feel he's too liberal. The church as an institution has traditionally offered sanctuary to those in need of help, as well as forgiveness and the chance at redemption. Furthermore, the idea of human ethics runs in tandem with spiritual values... the role of leaders in all realms is to help and not hinder, to play to hopes and not fears.

In fact, if these be the new battle lines where conservative forces will battle progress, so be it. Perhaps what's needed to pull us back from our divisions is a realization of deeper morals, and not just worries about monetary and other inconveniences.

Meanwhile, what about what's starting to happen in India, in regards to the world's largest democracy's new push towards becoming cashless? The government announced last month that more than 80 percent of all its banknotes are no longer legal tender, making $200 billion of hard cash worthless, unless traded in for new notes, in a matter of days. Why? To start shifting India away from cash towards digitalization, and end years of multi-leveled corruption in the process. The reasoning? That removing the fuel for corruption will limit it.

The big problem is that half the country doesn't even have bank accounts, and the announcement set off panic. They stash their money away physically. Sure, it's a nice idea to find out how much underground cash there was, but how many will get hurt in the process?

This got us thinking... is it even possible to step back from a digital world to one where one deals "off the grid" anymore. And if not, which we suspect, what happens when next we face massive power outages or disruptions due to storms, hackers, or worse? How reliant have we all become on our technology at this point? At what point will we be forced to keep so many disparate passwords that only our machines will be able to remember them? But there we go again down a manic rabbit hole, off into Wonderland conspiracies...

To get back to the holidays, we're liking what we see starting this weekend. Wawarsing Wassail is as impressive as always, with parades of lit-up firetrucks and readings of the old Stone Soup story, Santa sightings and carol singing. Ditto the tractor parade in Pine Bush, High Falls' tree lighting fun, and the ongoing lights in Wurtsboro. None of this disappears when the power goes off. All of this harkens back to past times when community was something shared, and not just threatened.

Meanwhile, the coming weeks promise more such localized, non-digital events. Yippee! While at the same time, as local realtors note in our front page story this week, new tourism apps for the region are starting to have an effect on whose buying and moving in here now.

Ah, the joys of having things all ways!

Happy Wassail!