Not So Happy New Mah Jongg Year

In any normal year tomorrow would be Mah Jongg Christmas, but (sigh), not this year. The new Mah Jongg card arrived today. In past years I would receive a call from an excited player asking if we were having an emergency Mah Jongg get together. The answer was always, “YES.” We dropped all pre-scheduled plans, making excuses to doctors or lawyers that we had to reschedule, just so we could all gather, new cards in hand and try and rid ourselves of our new found Mah Jongg virginity.

We would declare that this was a better card than last years, or a worse card than two years ago and try to win our first game with the new card.

People’s allegiance to favorite old hands would be transferred to the next closest hand on the new card, but if someone disliked certain tiles before they almost certainly still disliked them (ahem… 4 Dot Jan).

But the pandemic has canceled Mah Jongg Christmas, just as it canceled regular Christmas. I am certain that there are groups of Mahj players who are all fully vaccinated who will be gathering tomorrow, but not my young group. At best we are half vaccinated with the youngest still awaiting her first shot. So we will not risk getting Covid now when we are so close to full vaccination.

Online Mah Jongg will have to suffice. It’s not the celebration of the new card that I have had for the last 26 years, but this is not the normal year for anything. Nonetheless I wish all you players out there a Happy New Year for The new Mah Jongg card. Next year’s Mah Jongg Christmas is going to be a blow out.