With the constant chilly breeze in the evening and nice temperatures during the day, the cold spell this year has been more generous to Bangkokians than the increasingly suppressive political climate (We have been through many rounds of political turmoil for years, but had rarely experienced this kind of pleasant winter.)
And, as if that is not a nice enough ending to 2017, we also have another refreshing thing to celebrate. Rocker Artiwara Kongmalai, aka Toon Bodyslam, will finish his 2,191km charity run today raising one billion baht for the procurement of medical equipment for 11 public hospitals. Another good-feeling moment for this festive season.
The majority of 1,203 people surveyed by Nida Poll named him Person of the Year. And, without a doubt, many of you will consider him to be the most admirable person of 2017.
But not me.
What Toon has done is indeed admirable, but it is far from being exceptional.
It is inspiring enough to get many out of their homes to join the highly-publicised marathon (or go running elsewhere), donate money and take selfies with him.
It is good enough for the hospitals to get more money to buy medical equipment.
But it is not enough to bring the public's and the government's attention to the bigger issue of our underfunded public health system and medical facilities.
Will his charity run trigger a change in our public health funding and transform health care facilities?
In the future, when we look back to 2017, will he be the person who best reminds us of what the year was like?
For me, the most memorable people in 2017 are the young activists, human rights lawyers, protesters and politicians from opposing camps who have been oppressed and bullied by the ruling regime.
They stand as the most stark reminders of political and social conditions of the past year.
More interestingly, they are people from different walks of life who share different political ideologies, who have grown up from different social backgrounds and come from different regions of the country, but all of whom share the plight of being suppressed by the ruling regime.
I called them the oppressed. And they are the people of the year.
They should be recognised not just for what they have done but also for how they have been unfairly, ruthlessly and unreasonably treated by what has been called the legal process, the justice system, lawmaking and the pre-emption of so-called national security threats.
Among them are a group of eight young activists and human rights lawyers who stood as the accused at a military court trial in Khon Kaen last Thursday.
Their offence is an expression of opinions on the August 2015 constitutional referendum, the then draft charter and the ruling regime, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). They gathered at a seminar at Khon Kaen University on July 31, 2015 for peaceful debate and discussion, but ended up being charged with violating the NCPO's ban on political gatherings. They still have to go through more court sessions.
One of them is the 2017 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights recipient, Jatupat Boonpattararaksa (Pai Dao Din), who has already been jailed for over a year on a separate case involving computer crime and lese majeste offences for sharing a BBC Thai article on his Facebook page.
Like his fellow activists, Pai has been largely forgotten by the media even though his struggling helped elevate some attention and provoke debate on the regime's suppression of freedom of expression and indiscriminate use of criminal laws and the NCPO's orders.
Had these activists and lawyers chosen not to oppose the regime, they could have enjoyed a decent, ordinary life without facing legal consequences.
Another group that deserves my recognition is opponents of the coal-fired power plant in Thepa district in Songkhla. Sixteen of them were arrested late last month (and then released on bail) as they marched to meet Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha in person but ended up clashing with the police in Songkhla.
Politicians have not been spared, notably having been forced to adhere to the regime's political ban. Most recently, Gen Prayut's new order issued last Friday does not only keep the ban in place but also invents a set of new rules that will eventually make it more difficult for existing parties to prepare for a general election in November next year.
His order also gives a competitive edge to new parties amid suspicions that Gen Prayut would like to rely on a new party to become a non-elected premier after the election, a conditional arrangement allowed by the current charter.
Both Pheu Thai and Democrat politicians, as well as those from smaller parties, have been forced to accept the new rules of the game. Under the order, they are given much less time to handle administrative work, while being asked, out of the blue, to have all their members reconfirm their membership in writing within 30 days, a task that could put them at risk of losing some members and pave the way for the members' defection to new parties. And even as Gen Prayut has been on a series of the political roadshows upcountry meeting local people in different provinces, his new order forbids politicians from doing the same or similar things.
These politicians will now get a taste of what it is like to live under authoritative rule. We can only hope that none will call for military intervention to solve their political woes ever again once the country returns to democratic rule.
Amid these unpleasant and disheartening developments, Toon's charity run comes as a much-needed reprieve, a feel-good story that lent us hope for a better Thailand. But it does not change the fact that 2017 is another year of us living under an increasingly oppressive environment overseen by the regime, with their victims Thais who have been directly threatened, prosecuted or simply bullied. It's their suffering that has helped remind us of what the year has been like.
Surasak Glahan is deputy editorial pages editor, Bangkok Post.