Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader trusts that if you are reading these words, your Christmas is very very boring.

This is, now, the lull before the storm that will be Christmas at the Villainschloss and there-bouts. Today, Saturday, December 22, was consumed by a few hours of last moment shopping. Then the wrapping of gifts began. Indeed, most of the gifts are wrapped right now. A few stragglers remain. (They shall be dealt with tomorrow.)

In an hour or so, friends of your Maximum Leader’s children will descend on the Villainschloss. They will be fed and then we will trek up to Washington DC to see the National Christmas tree on the Ellipse near the White House. Your Maximum Leader is the only parent who will do the drive apparently, and he believes in letting as many people share the joy of the season as possible.

Tomorrow your Maximum Leader will go to church (where he has been a lector now for about a year - though he doesn’t read every Sunday or Holy Day). Then the rest of the day will be cleaning and preparing the schloss for visits.

Your Maximum Leader’s sainted in-laws arrive on Monday. Monday evening the whole extending family here in Fredericksburg will go to the Presbyterian Church for services (where your Maximum Leader’s niece and nephew will perform in the holiday pageant). Then it will be over to his Brother & Sister-in-law’s house for dinner. Your Maximum Leader’s family will need to depart early, as he is lectoring at church on Christmas day.

So, your Maximum Leader will be up Christmas Day at 5:45am so that he can prepare the family to go to church. He is reading at the 7am mass. Then it is home for gifts and stockings. Then will come the cooking. Dinner is, as always, roast beef, yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes and two green veggies. (This year the veggies are likely to be green beans and asparagus.) Then there will be pies…

Your Maximum Leader wishes you and yours a happy Christmas.

And the angel said to them: Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people:
For, this day, is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David.
And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying:
Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.

Peace and good will to you all.

Carry on.

Greetings. I sat down today to try and write a post and update this moribund blog.

But just as I logged into the internet I saw.

I can’t say how grief-stricken I am for the families of the 20 slaughtered children and the 6 murdered adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. I am also saddened for the parents of the shooter, who were apparently murdered by their son before he went to do his grisly work at the school.

My heart is so heavy I can hardly wish all manner of Dantean misery on the soul of the shooter.

As my wife is a teacher in an elementary school, my mind is conjuring scenes of what Sandy Hook must be like now.

I can hardly bear it.

Carry on.