Well it's nearly time for the traditional mid-winter holiday ...

Some spare time :-)

- Nigel

"Chris Wilson" wrote

One of the soon to be released Heljan 7mm class 47 diesels is top of my list to Father Christmas.

John.

Your in for a long wait then!.....

"Chris Wilson" wrote What's everyone else getting/wanting?

That Chris will discover DCC is good ! (Only Joking!)

Bachy 47 with Sound in good old Banger Blue !

But I'm with Jane- The planned Bachmann stuff would be nice....

January you say ? Yeah, which year ?

An Elite DCC system plus a decoder or two. Hurrah.

Simon

A Hornby Britannia would be nice, and as my present to myself an NCE Power Cab.

Is it worth pointing out that the rebuilt Merchant Navy marketed some years ago by Wrenn was actually a rebuilt West Country with Merchant Navy nameplates mounted on the boiler rather than on the footplate? There were subtle differences between the Merchant Navy class and the Battle of Britain/West Country classes - the latter being slightly smaller in some dimensions. Hope this does not dissuade you from your wishes, but would not like you to get the MN and show it off - only to be told that it's incorrect and isn't a Merchant Navy after all.

David Costigan

The original feast of St Nicholas ("Santa Claus") is actually the 6th December and still is where I come from. It was American retailers who moved it to Christmas to boost mid-winter sales and everything Americans do, the British have to follow suit.

Also, the real Santa Claus wears green not red and lives in Madrid not at the North Pole. That was another American corporate fabrication.

(kim)

In message , kim writes

For more information on St Nicholas, bishop of Myra in Turkey, see

Dunno were still hanging on to colour and can pronounce nuclear.

Simon

But we can now perform the impossible by filling out a form instead of filling it in.

Martin.

Although some of the associated celebrations are held the 5th in other places.

Erm, surely saints' feast days are a matter for the Bishop of Rome and friends, not for retailers?

St Nicholas's feat and Christmas are not quite the same thing - Nicholas was not Christ(!). The Dec 25th events seem to be returning to their roots, losing the more recent baggage brought to the party by a Jewish splinter group.

He was very dead and inside a church in Bari when I went a few weeks ago.

Yes, we call it "Sinterklaas Eve"

They moved the gift buying associated with the feast of St Nicholas to the period celebrating the birth of Christ.

Exactly, and Santa Claus has nothing to do with Christmas.

You are very much mistaken. He is alive and well and visited Amsterdam on

19th November. He will be resident there until the 6th December along with Black Peter. Here are the documents and photographs to prove it. (kim)

In message , kim writes

This "eve" business is all to do with the day starting and ending at sundown, which it still does in the Jewish faith (it's why my Jewish co-workers have to get home before sundown on Fridays). So "Christmas eve" is really the evening of Christmas Day, which starts at sundown on

24 December, and ends at sundown on 25 December. Similarly with St Nicholas's day.

When I grew up we never talked about Santa Claus, always Father Christmas. Santa Claus was always an Americanism. (Maybe Groucho Marx was right: there ain't no Santa Claus!)

Couldn't agree more.

The Coca-Cola Company has a lot to answer for.

But the Feast of Stephen is on December 26th...

And Wenceslas was only a duke, was murdered before the feast, and St Agnes' fountain hadn't been built.

There is no record of what type of pizza he preferred, and no surviving copy of any risk assessments carried out regarding the silly b****r's bedroom window.

Bah, humbug.