I wanted to send some sort of Christmas and New Year greeting to my friends colleagues / associates etc, but it is so difficult to know exactly what to say without offending someone.  In these days of lawsuits you have to be very careful.

So I met with my lawyer yesterday and on his advice I wish to say the following:

Without obligation, either implied or implicit, please accept, if you will, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice, always with the utmost respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or indeed, their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you all a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that Ireland is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

Make note that by accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal.  It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting.  It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.  This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent seasonal greeting,  whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Disclaimer:

No trees were harmed in the sending of this message;

however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

---