You've got to feel for the travel agents, along with others who were sucker-punched by COVID-19 this past year.
The folks at itravel at The Junction, though, have managed to keep their sense of humour.
They decorated the office window in Union Street with a "huge picture postcard image of the stunning Banff Springs Hotel covered in snow".
In times when humanity is not plagued by a plague, the hotel is a popular stop for tourists to take photos.
Some tours involve a Canadian Mountie [a federal police officer] posing for photos with the tourists.
Given that overseas travel is mostly off limits, there'll be no selfies with a real mountie this year.
Not to worry, itravel has a cardboard cut-out of a mountie for "fake Canadian White Christmas photos" with the image of the snow-covered hotel.
itravel director Andrew Minto said many clients were disappointed to be "missing their dream white Christmas".
"It has been a crazy, laugh-or-you-cry kind of year. We decided to bring some happiness this Christmas."
Sounds of Summer
Troy Whiteside was chatting to mates under a floodlit sporting area.
Floury baker cicadas were buzzing about, attracted to the lights.
The group was discussing how they hadn't seen any green grocer cicadas for years.
A moment or two later, a green grocer appeared and landed on one of their shirts.
Troy rarely sees green grocers in his area of Shelly Beach on the Central Coast.
"My girls are too busy watching Netflix to go outside and catch 'em," he said.
"They probably have some game on their phone that catches virtual cicadas.
"Although Tara - the 14-year-old - did say to me a few weeks ago when we went outside and the cicadas were making a racket, 'That's the sounds of summer'.
"I was quietly chuffed and proud of her for that little observation."
Meanwhile, Hogsy from the Central Coast said green grocers and yellow mondays were around at his work depot.
"Our depot has large spotlights on all night. It's amazing the creatures that are attracted and still there in the morning. The moths and beetles are incredible. Plenty of cicadas this time of year," he said.
Plenty of black princes and floury bakers are around. Double drummers seem rarer. And what about the brown bakers? Or was it brown bombers?
There's also a cicada known as the blue moon. We've never seen one. Going by its name, that's probably no surprise.
2020 Hindsight
We just caught a rerun of the first episode of Gardening Australia in 2020.
To open the show, the bushy bearded host Costa Georgiadis said: "We're back and we've missed you".
"2020 is going to be a great year."
