“Of all the months of the year there is not a month one half so welcome to the young, or so full of happy associations, as the last month of the year.” - Charles Dickens

Happy December! Quite an odd opening for our newsletter, but is it? As we advance through the last month of the year would it be better to say Sad December, or Bah Humbug? That is a choice we all have. I believe a positive approach to the start of December helps us welcome the revolutionary event that we celebrate at the end of the month; Christmas, when the world received the greatest gift possible; Jesus Christ. So, why deprive yourself of the Christmas Spirit when you can enjoy it longer?

Christmas songs, have become just songs, but they hold the answer, especially traditional songs, they cry of peace and love and hope and goodwill, of peace on earth, to men of good will. So, let this December be the time we find the real spirit of Christmas! Let this be a Christmas of hope and finding lost hearts, of opening our hearts up to His love. Of reaching out and loving our neighbor and lost friends, of being the change we want to see in the world. Of holding our hand out to the person we may dislike and making peace.

As we have mentioned in our past newsletters, unlike the doom and gloom the media feeds us, we have been receiving new products and restocks. We have received some Athearn items this past week, and Scaletrains SD40 Dash locos are on the way along with the Airslide Hoppers. We expect the new monthly release of Kadee and Micro-Trains cars to be arriving next week as well. However, there are still items we cannot get, but if it is available, we try to have it!

We continue to have our clinics on Saturday morning at 10am, which last about an hour if you have any interest. Tomorrow we have Rich Hanke explaining his build of a Church he scratch built. On December 11th we have the “Wonders of DCC”. Then to wrap up 2021’s clinics we have “Accentuating “Brick” Structures”, by George Doncheck on December 18^th. We are working on a schedule for January and hope to have it available soon. However, if you have a topic, you would like us to present, please let us know.