Let’s hope for a peaceful year in 2007, one when friendship and family always will be more important than money and business.

This was the best holiday wish that I received this year. It sounds very Lamma Island, but not very Hong Kong. I hope that everyone had a fantastic holiday season.

I’m writing parts of this at 7:25 p.m. on Christmas Day. Together with friends, my wife and I have just finished our yearly, traditional turkey-on-a-rooftop lunch. We started more than five hours ago.

Our fridge is full to the brim with leftovers, enough to last at least until the Chinese New Year. I lost the Eat-a-Whole-Turkey-Leg Challenge to the Lamma author Jay Scott Kanes, so I had to take the leftovers home. I’m stuck with them by myself as my wife doesn’t eat leftovers. It’s against her deepest spiritual principles as a Noleftovertarian, she tells me. But I always thought her to be a Catholic. When did she change her beliefs? Or is it a new diet?

I put my ancient (university days) cooking skills to the test, preparing the roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts to go along with the 10-pound-plus roasted turkey from the New Holiday Mood Restaurant. After my cooking, our kitchen will never look the same and might need some major cleanup.

Later I dropped into bed and slept like a log for 11 hours while dreaming of leftovers for breakfast, lunch, dinner and breakfast again. In my nightmare, a flock of angry turkeys chased me through the hills above Yung Shue Wan, my home village on Lamma Island.

Fine food and pleasant company with great friends and treasured family members count for so much more than money and business do. Even so, I also wish you great business and ample cash for 2007.

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