It's Santa Lucia Day!!!

Early in the morning, on December 14th each year, the Swedes celebrate Santa Lucia Day. The saint and tradition stem originally from Italy, and you can find out more about that via the web. In Sweden, the the girl dressed as Santa Lucia, as well as her followers, wake Mom and Dad early with a tray of saffron bread and other baked goodies along with a pot of fresh coffee -- a pretty nice way to wake up -- along with a variety of Swedish Christmas songs, including the hymn Santa Lucia naturally.

As you can see in the photograph above, the girls who wear candles on their heads protect their hair from fire with a damp towel, worn beneath the crown. In years gone by, it was the prettiest girl in a village who was chosen to be Santa Lucia. However, I have it on good authority (my former Swedish teacher at the University of Pittsburgh) that things are rather different today. Apparently, ALL of the girls get to dress up as the saint now if they want to, including the children of immigrants to Sweden, in the name of egalitarianism. The idea behind that is nice, but I think that the tradition has been watered down a little bit as a result, which is kind of sad. But that's just me.

The Christmas open house at our place was lots of fun last night. The Grand Duchess and I had guests from France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Kenya, China, and Minnesota as well as a host of friends and acquaintances from the U.S. of A. It was, we agreed later, one of the nicest functions we've had. Lots of good conversation, laughter, food, and music. At one point, there was a discussion about the use of blogs, so naturally I was able to hold forth on this subject for a few minutes, which led, in turn, to an opportunity to show off the wargaming figures and table in the next room to interested parties. Unfortunately, all of that means that my carefully guarded geekiness is now common currency! ;-)

Today, it's on to those final four chapters, which are waiting to be proofread just to my left, so I can send everything off tomorrow. And then it's on to tallying and submitting the final course grades for two of my courses this past semester. If there is time this evening, I'll try to get moving on relaying certain requested information to Jonathan, so we can get on with the current turn of The Action at Pickelhaubewicz. . . Finally, if there is any time left before my eyes begin to close, I'll work on another couple of those fusiliers. We'll see.

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

Basic Reds Done at Last. . .

S till quite a way to go with the current batch of 20 human figures and a horse (of course), but they're actually starting to look like something after all of the red distinctions. Quite a bit of painting in hour-long sessions the last week as and when time has allowed. Mostly applying the basic dark red to facing areas and turnbacks followed by the inevitable touch-ups to clean up wobbly edges and those misplaced, minute splotches of Citadel Khorne Red. They're looking like so many Austrian infantry regiments of the era at this point, but the eventual flags will turn them magically into the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment, more or less, of the AWI period. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. One frustrating point (ahem) of sad discovery. I've started trying to use those Winsor & Newton 'Series Seven' brushes (#1 rounds) purchased last spring, and the blasted things simply will not keep a point. Very frustrating since I have heard over the y...

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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