To all the readers, the faithful, the occasional (looking for sexy stuff in Beijing), the known and unknown: Happy Holidays and a Happy 2008. And lots of excitement with the 2008 Olympics (with a tone of muted sarcasm and curiosity).
For me, a year filled with some good, some bad. Will keep it for myself except for close friends who can hear it whispered in their ears.
No Christmas cards, New Year cards, e-mails sent out to dozens of people. Don’t feel like it. Anyway, people already receive too much in their mail boxes.
No “New Year resolutions” either, I still have the last year’s ones.
Received the following greetings from a friend in Beijing, he gets the first prize for the most unusual e-mail Holiday Greetings. Typical of his sarcasm, something we regularly share. Identity not revealed!
No snow, no reindeer, no politically incorrect ho-ho-ho’s, no teddy bears called Jesus, no “with-very-best-wishes-to-all-the-family-for-Christmas -and-the-New-Year”, no jaw-dropping family yawnletters, for this year I am sending out only Gandhi-cards… to provoke a smile, a shudder, a momentary insight, while achieving a substantial saving on cards and postage stamps, which I will not, not, not be giving to charity.
For I am and remain,
Mahatma Grinch.
(although you will all know “Be the change you want to see in the world”, you may not be so familiar with some of these. MG)
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ”
“God has no religion”
“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind”
“I believe in equality for everyone except reporters and photographers”
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good. The good is only temporary, the evil it does is permanent”
“There is more to life than increasing its speed”
“There is no path to Peace. Peace is the path”
“Live simply so that others may simply live”
“What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.”
But now please go and deck the halls with boughs of holly…… Fa-la-la-la-la …..fa la-la-la-la!
Mahatma Grinch.