New Mandala is now old enough to have traditions.

At the end of 2006 we introduced Thailand’s Christmas elf. It was, of course, Thaksin Shinawatra. At the end of 2007 we had no choice but to feature a proxy-elf, Samak Sundaravej. Today it is one year since Samak’s People Power Party fell just short of an absolute majority in the general election. How times have changed.

This year, of course, we have a brand new elf. No proxy this time! This one has achieved his elevation to elf-dom all on his own! But being a modest elf he insisted on bringing along a couple of his friends. One of his friends was no surprise at all. But the other? Who could it possibly be?

Turn up the volume and enjoy!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

New Mandala wishes all our readers a very Merry Christmas. Over the next few weeks we will be having a break. There may be occasional posts and we will be checking comments (but not as regularly as usual). We would love to receive guest posts during the holiday period and will do our best to post them.

We will be back with another year of anecdote, analysis and new perspectives some time in January 2009.

Best wishes to all!

Andrew and Nicholas