Everything about it has been low-key. The authorities are hoping we will hardly notice our census results which are released today.
The figures were due out in August and it's not just conspiracy theorists who believe that postponing until six days before Christmas is a deliberate attempt to bury the story.
The government reckons that with last-minute shopping, office parties, and other festive activities, we won't have much time to dwell on a plethora of boring old statistics.
How wrong they will be. For in Northern Ireland, sectarian head-counts have always been important. Some observers say that's pathetic. They believe such figures shouldn't even be published because they divide the communities further.
But it was always inevitable we would continually keep tally of the number of Protestants and Catholics. This state didn't come into existence accidentally.
Nationalists and unionists must both admit that a religious head-count was at the core of the setting up of Northern Ireland. The British government committee of 1920 which established partition initially favoured a nine-county Ulster.
But Sir James Craig insisted a 43% Catholic state couldn't survive. "No sane man would undertake to carry a parliament with it," said his brother Charles. So Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan were dumped, losing 70,000 Protestants but - more importantly - 260,000 Catholics.
In the six-county state that was established, Protestants out-numbered Catholics two-to-one. Everybody was aware of the numbers' game. Protestants developed a siege mentality. As their community gradually expanded, Catholics came to realise the power of demographics.
It isn't our fault we are preoccupied with a sectarian head-count. Although our continuing obsession with who is out-breeding who, shows the Agreement certainly hasn't lessened polarisation.
The suggestion that, after 1998, political parties would try to convince members of the opposite community of the merits of their arguments was always ludicrous.
The census figures could show the Catholic population as high as 45% and Protestants at 50%. Those unionist politicians who try to play down the significance of such statistics are in denial.
Yes, the Catholic birth rate is falling but it's still higher than that of Protestants. And in the pre-school education sector - that's very young children - there is a sizeable Catholic majority.
A huge danger to the Protestant community is the tens of thousands of their students who go to Scottish and English universities never to return. And with Sinn Féin Lord Mayors and government ministers, and 50/50 recruitment policies for the police, this trend will intensify.
The argument that a significant Catholic unionist population exists is false. The SDLP and Sinn Féin secured a combined vote of 45% in the last European elections.
Today, the term 'minority community' doesn't apply in spirit to Northern Ireland Catholics. Four of our six counties have Catholic majorities.
The Provos once denounced filling in census forms as "collaboration with the British state". A worker collecting the forms in Derry, Joanne Mathers, was shot dead in 1981.
The fire-power now is under the duvet - it's bedroom-and-ballot box politics. The SDLP was never republican and Sinn Féin these days seems content with administering the six-county state so long as they obtain prime positions.
So Protestants needn't fear that Irish unity is around the corner. But a substantially greener Northern Ireland certainly awaits.
