A Merry Christmas to All and to all a Good night.

It's Christmas Eve and the paints and models have been tidily packed up away out of sight so the dining table can be bedecked with Christmas cheer. My beautiful supportive wife allows me to normally leave out a permanent painting tray of current projects on the go in the corner of the room that I can just grab and put on the table ready to go. There's nothing more off-putting to any hobby than it being packed away out of sight. The hurdle of unpacking your paints each time can really be enough to slow you down.

This means I haven't really got anything to show and tell I'm afraid, but I'm sure you all don't mind. I made a couple of last minute Pre Christmas orders not expecting them to arrive by now but they already have. So I have January's Wargames Illustrated to read over the festive period which includes a sprue of 13.5mm (I know, the conversations I have seen online about the scale have gone on and on.) American Civil War soldiers from Warlord Games. I predict a lot of drybrushing happening.

I was super excited when I heard about this little Kitty from Bad Squiddo games was coming out, but I really didn't expect to get hold of him before Christmas.

He doesn't fit in with anything else in my collection at all but I really don't care. Annie has promised to do more similar models if he is successful so fingers crossed I can end up with a small warband of animal warriors. I'm sure I can fit them into a skirmish game somewhere or come up with something.

We're in tier 4 here at Chez Lead so small family Christmas tomorrow, (For non UK readers that means we pretty much aren't allowed visitors), but our spirits aren't dampened. Our annual Christmas get together to the pub with my wargaming friends couldn't happen this year so a drunken Zoom quiz was in order instead. I have concluded that they may know an awful lot about military history, but ask them to name top ten Broadway musicals and they will look at you blankly.

It was good to catch up with the chaps, some of whom I realised over the last decade I haven't really not seen in person for longer than a week or so, now it's been over six months. It's been a tough year but others have had it tougher. Christmas is a time for giving, so if you can, maybe go make a donation to Shelter over here.

Before this blog, I didn't spend a lot of time chatting to strangers online. This year it has kept me sane reading blogs, watching live YouTube videos and just general joining in with the hobby chat online. In a year when people haven't been able to get together I feel like our community have become closer in some sense.

Special mention and seasons greetings to Carole from Hippolytas tiny footsteps for her blog, Annie from Bad Squiddo Games for the fun Sunday morning coffee chats, Soren from Bloodbeard Garage for his excellent blog and encouragement, Neal from Wee gamers and Karl from Crooked Dice for their Saturday morning talking nonsense on Youtube.

Finally, a special Happy Christmas to the Brother in Law and the Illustrious Opponent who have both been sources of inspiration for this blog, possibly against their will and to my wife, for having to make suitable impressed faces at everything I paint for the last year.

And to everyone who has commented on the blog or clicked the like button on Facebook, or just read the blog. Take care and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Additional. I love Die Hard as much as the next person, but Christmas Eve is all about Muppet Christmas Carol. If you start the film at 10:47:04pm, you can start Christmas day as Scrooge pushes Gonzo and Rizzo off the window sill on Christmas morning and then shares the joy of Christmas.

Make your own paper hat

My son came home from school today with a handmade Christmas hat on his head he had made at school to wear for his school Christmas dinner. I had a sudden memory flashback to childhood when we used to do the very same thing back in school for our celebration. I particularly remember being very competitive about making mine. Especially as one child was announced as having made the "best hat" each year. I remember considering myself to be particularly crafty even back then and very serious each year with more and more elaborate constructions.

Obviously the teachers made a massive fuss of us all, rightly so, so I can imagine my memory of how amazing these hats were far outweighs any actual achievements we made in papercraft haberdashery. My point is, we were encouraged in our craft. No-one was told they shouldn't have done their hat that way, or why bother making a hat at all, its not going to be as good as the other kids. Everyone joined in. 

My little corner of the internet is tiny and I just scrape the surface of the hobby world, so I mostly see hobbyists like this. We all admire each others paint jobs, praise others work, give useful tips and answer multitudes of questions mostly in the spirit of sharing knowledge without belittling others. 

This is how it should be. There's no limit to how many people are allowed to take part. There's no right or wrong way to do your own hobby. Even if you are painting up historical miniatures and someone points out you've painted the buttons on the tunics the wrong colour, hell, you're doing an alternate history. 

I do however every now and then see the other side, people are told they shouldn't be allowed to join in, or they are doing it wrong. To those people I say, shush. We are all just making our own paper hats.