A Christmas Card To All Mad Padre Wargames Readers

Depending on where you are in the world, dear reader, it may already be Christmas Eve, but for us here on the frozen Canadian prairie, there is a little time left in this day, the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Mrs. Padre and I observe a few traditions, including the lighting of Advent candles, Sunday by Sunday, and bringing home a real Christmas tree. Here you can see both glowing gently, and while it's frigid winter outside, here inside is warm and comfort. For that I'm grateful.

In another Christmas tradition, Mrs. Padre has commandeered the dining room table for her annual holiday jigsaw puzzle. Her mind is a subtle and precise thing, inclined to visual and word puzzles, whereas mine has all the patience of a Golden Retreiver with severe ADD. And yet she marvels that I have the patience to sit for hours with paints and miniatures. Somehow my mind can, as W.B. Yeats said, "like a long-legged fly upon the stream ... move upon silence". Today was a good painting day, finding the detail in big figures and getting the big picture in very small figures. Curt's Analogue Hobbies painting challenge has been a great incentive for me, and I am grateful for the creative aspects of our hobby.

I'm also grateful for the social aspects of this hobby. This year I travelled back to Ontario to game with dear and dearly missed friends in Ontario. I met a local circle of boardgamers in Medicine Hat and while I wish they were interested in miniatures gaming, they are good people. I've become close friends with a few people, via email and Facetime, that I've never met in person, and yet they are dear to me. I'm grateful for all of you from Madrid, Spain to Christ Church, NZ and everwhere in between, grateful for your interest in this blog, and grateful for what you offer in your blogs, for your creativity, inspiration, and good humour. Thanks for all your well wishes for my recent knee surgery, the offending limb is recovering nicely and I hope to be back to running before the New Year.

If you are secular, I wish you and yours a very happy holidays and all good things in the new year. If you are a person of faith, may God's blessing and peace be with you and those you love and pray for, now and ever more.

And now another tradition calls, the eggnog (light, low cal), which is really an excuse for a sharp shot of Lamb's Navy Rum (calories be damned). Cheers, Mike