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.

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

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

The Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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