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Happy 2026!!!

If you’ve read last year’s page through, you know that there was no big Christmas game haul this year as Selena and her fiancé moved into their own house and Julie’s interest has shifted a little…

It’s really great news overall… Julie has been having more ups than downs health-wise which I’m very grateful for… her weight is down in preparation of having both knees replaced and she’s also found a renewed interest in her crafting and reconnected with some local crafting buddies (one an old classmate from high school)… I’m very happy for her as I always hated the thought of her being stuck at home all day, in pain and doing nothing but resting and tending to the dogs while I was at work… she’s even been selling a lot of her items online and plans to attend craft fairs when she her health allows…

To support her ventures, most of her Christmas presents were geared towards the shows and teaching her some of the same lessons that I’ve learned from packing, moving and lifting drums over the past 5 decades…

Towards that end, I got her 2 folding Vevor wagons…

8 of the Iris 12 gallon heavy duty totes…

And an assortment of free standing pegboards as the ones I saw her moving around were comprised of 8 metal peg boards zip tied together… they’re unwieldy and heavy and sharp so I’m hoping these will replace those and that everything – including the large, molded folding table she takes – will fit in the two wagons.

Among other things, I topped it off with her own JBL Flip bluetooth speaker as she always liked mine and this will come in handy when she’s crafting or working around the house AND for playing some tunes when she does attend craft shows… 🙂

For now, most of my gaming will probably be with the local game group and my friend Dave who I’ve turned into a gamer over the past few years… 🙂

January 1… Happy New Year!!

Relaxing day off from work… after I was up at 2:00am to pickup my good friend Dave and his wife at 3:00am and drop them off at Albany International… had a couple inches of snow overnight with the squalls that were blowing through… roads weren’t bad unless they plowed and left an icy road behind… roads were pretty much just wet below Saratoga until we hit another squall coming through a couple exits before the airport but overall, an easy trip…

Heading back I noticed the wind had picked up a lot… snow was blowing and drifting and I hoped it wouldn’t affect their flight… otherwise the roads were good until about exit 16 coming north but I made it home without issue.

The weather and extreme cold have bothered Julie’s knees and the dogs had taken over my side of the bed so I crashed in my computer chair and watched some videos… nodded off a couple times then had some breakfast and let Julie and the dogs rest… 🙂

It was a great day to do nothing… I fed the dogs later in the morning while Julie let them out the side door… she trusts them loose and they get to run a little while I always have them on a leash… after lunch I hooked them up and took them out front… it gives them a change and another chance to play a little…

Are you bored yet?? FINALLY – some gaming to report!!

Mid-afternoon I checked on Julie who was up and crafting and she asked if I wanted to play a game!! When I came to, I asked her which game she was thinking… I knew which one I wanted to play after looking forward to playing it for the past two Christmases and not having it… ‘Santa’s Workshop Deluxe 2nd Edition‘ !!

I’d been watching videos since I got word that it was shipping… I read the manual and started typing my teach / refresh notes Christmas Eve day in case she felt like playing something Christmas Eve but that sadly didn’t happen… the more I watched and read and typed, the more I knew we’d love it and started thinking this must be the best Christmas game out there!!

Julie came into the game room and saw that I had it mostly setup and I could tell it wasn’t what she expected but she sat down and patiently listened as I went through all the areas of the workshop…

This game is dripping with theme as they say… from the Reindeer Stables to the Mailroom with all the letters from Santa (with the toys you have to build on one side) to the Coal Mine which is the games currency (and for the kids on the Naughty List) to the Material Locations where you swap coal for the fabric, wood and metal necessary to build the toys, etc… the game takes place on the 9 days before Christmas and every 3 days Santa comes through and does an inspection to see which team of elves has the most Christmas Cheer (who completed the most toys and hung the most ornaments on the workshop’s tree)… in the end, the team that has the most points (most cheer), joins Santa on an after-Christmas vacation someplace warm and sunny… the artwork is amazing and the gameplay, while having a lot going on compared to what I was anticipating, was fun and thinky (there is a Basic set of rules and it’s own game board on the opposite side of the main board)…

When we finished, I had barely edged out Julie but we both loved the game!! I’ll probably fight the urge to play it again for now and tuck it on a shelf for next Christmas but, if I have my way, this will be out new Christmas Eve tradition… yes – the game is that good!!

Julie originally really had something else in mind and I promised to play that next… it’s a couples game that I think she got me for my birthday called ‘Honey – Answer Me This‘… so she took the dogs out while I finished packing Santa’s Workshop and read the rules for this new one…

‘Honey – Answer Me This‘ reminds me of the old ‘Newlyweds’ game show back in the 70’s except for 2 players… simple concept… take turns drawing and reading a card out loud… you both write down what you think the other will say… if the person who DIDN’T draw the card matches the answer of the person who did, they score 1 point… first one to 10 points wins. We had some fun with it though I wasn’t surprised that it isn’t even listed on Board Game Geeks website… 🙂