If you're alive and well enough to read this, count yourself lucky.
Yoh! This has been a shocking, harrowing, dramatic (running out of adjectives here) year, which most of us would like to forget as quickly as possible.
It was a year when we mourned our fallen stars.
We said goodbye to “The Greatest” boxing champ Muhammad Ali.
In the music world, we lost the legendary Prince, David Bowie and Leonard Cohen.
Just this week, we mourned the loss of pop star George Michael and actress Carrie Fisher, followed soon after by her mom Debbie Reynolds.
And closer to home, we laid kwaito star Mandoza to rest.
May they all rest in peace.
The hashtag #MustFall dominated headlines in South Africa this year.
The slogan was born out of the #FeesMustFall protests, in which university students at campuses around the country called for affordable tuition.
Some students called for zero increases in 2017, while others demanded free education.
The protests would spiral out of control: the initial peaceful demonstrations at Parliament later turned violent, as unruly protesters trashed campuses, torched vehicles and buildings, disrupting end-of-year exams.
After government capped fee increases at eight percent for next year, we can expect more academic turmoil when registrations begin.
After #FeesMustFall, the new buzzword was #ZumaMustFall, as opposition parties (Julius Malema and his EFF in particular) turned Parliament into a circus.
Verbal fights, walkouts and clashes with security were the order of the day, as MPs took on President Jacob Zuma.
It was a hell of a year for JZ, as the knives came out to stiek the dikvel ANC leader.
Zuma took a moerse pak: the Constitutional Court ordered him to pay back R7.8 million for his Nkandla upgrades; the ANC took a beating in the municipal elections in August, losing the Western Cape and the PE and Joburg metros; and former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela implicated him and other bigwigs in dealings with the Guptas in her State of Capture report.
But despite five motions of no-confidence, a rift with Cosatu and deepening divisions in the national executive over his leadership, No.1, the ultimate survivor, lived to fight another day.
If there’s one thing we’ve learnt over the past seven years, it’s never bet against Zuma.
It also looked like Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan – along with the rand – was heading for a fall, after he was charged with fraud over a retirement package he had approved while boss of Sars years ago.
The case was dropped due to a lack of evidence, but Gordhan isn’t in the clear yet, as National Prosecuting Authority boss Shaun Abrahams is determined to charge him over the alleged Sars “rogue unit”.
There was no luck either for Marius Fransman, who fell from grace badly in 2016.
The Western Cape ANC chairman never recovered from the Louisa Wynand sex scandal in January, and fell out of favour with party bosses, who suspended him for five years for abusing his office and bringing the ANC into disrepute.
Then it was a case of the bigger they are, the harder they fall for Hlaudi Motsoeneng and the entire SABC board, who fell on their swords after running the broadcaster into the ground. Zuma is due to appoint a whole new board soon.
Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party’s presidential campaign fell flat, giving rise to Donald Trump. The world is holding its breath to see what the trash-talking naartjie gevriet will get up to when he takes the Oval Office in February 2017.
If there was one silver (or gold) lining among the dark clouds in 2016, it was Wayde van Niekerk’s World Record run at the Rio Olympics.
Thanks, Wayde, you made our year.
Racists such as Penny Sparrow, Matthew Theunissen, Ben Sasonof and Pieter Hattingh fell foul of social media.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie fell apart.
Kim Kardashian fell victim to armed jewel robbers in Paris.
And the arme Springbokke fell to sixth in the rugby rankings.
Enough said. Goodbye forever, 2016, and all the best for 2017.