Hopefully, this issue should get to you for Christmas, in which case we on the editorial and publishing team would like to say "Have a Happy Christmas and help Dave Ryan have a Prosperous New Year".

At the risk of sounding maudlin, Christmas is one of the times (the others are when I get my monthly bank statement) when I sit and think about taking part in a hobby that has the bottom line of dead bodies. Was it Robert Zimmerman who sang "Ain't goin' to study war no more"? Supposing that we could go back nearly two hundred years and say to some poor starving fantassin trying to warm his hands in a horse's entrails somewhere in Russia, "Hey pal, one day I am going to dress up and pretend to be you for a weekend!" I can just imagine his look of gratitude that you are going to remember his suffering. As a wargamer, I am probably closer to that side of it than a reenactor, but it's something to think about as we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace.

Be excellent to each other.