Merry Christmas!

From all of us here at Monderno, I want to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas!

Hopefully you are able to spend time with family and friends over the holidays. To those of you who are deployed, sacrificing that privilege for this great nation, a special thank you goes out to you.

We have some awesome stuff planned in 2013, including SHOT Show, lots of guns, knives and gear, as well as several training events. In addition to the fun, I think we also have some tough times ahead of us in 2013. The coming gun control legislation, the state of the economy…the list is deep.

Given our country’s current situation, and the fact that tomorrow is Christmas, I’m reminded of the poem Christmas Bells by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Christmas Bells was written during the American Civil War after Longfellow’s oldest son was severely wounded in the fighting, and his wife passed away in a fire.

Dark times to say the least. On Christmas day in 1863, he wrote:

[blockquote]
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
[/blockquote]

But the poem, Longfellow’s story, and I pray ours, doesn’t end there. And with that my friends, I leave you with the final stanza of Christmas Bells, and I wish you a Merry Christmas!

[blockquote]
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
[/blockquote]