A note from the front while awaiting news of anything resembling a baseball thing at all

For the sixteenth consecutive day we are camped at the base of a mountain in dense forest with snow falling all around as provisions dwindle. We move a little every day and yet we are always upon another mountainside, or marching up and through it. We tend to the horses and the elephants and each other as each can manage. When one of us falls we have learned to keep moving. The animals are worth a little bit more to the generals.

Each evening as the scouts return we hope for news that the end of this mountain range has been spotted. That, within the next day, these frozen doldrum may be escaped. News of anything different than the last several weeks might bring such cheer to the ranks, where chatter grows bitter and dispirited. How we quarrel with the same friends each night. Alas! Alas, dear Harricar!

It is only the certainty of better and longer days that marches us ahead. We took some time this morning to anachronistically celebrate Christmas as it better suits a hypothetical future audience. None of us know what Christmas is, was, or will be, but we had a lot of fun with the hats and presents and Hannibal laughed merrily while riding an elephant. Such festive cheer.

I hope you may find it too this coming season, Harricar. Just as we will see the plain stretching before us and the great season that awaits, may you find success in the year to come. Surely nothing bad is going to happen back home in Iberia before I return.