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Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

A few pictures of the usual family festivities in the Parish Hall after the Christmas morning service was done and we could all relax πŸ™‚

Most of these are taken with my Christmas present from my amazing wife- a Lomography Petzval 55mm f/1.7 MKII Art Lens. It’s a modern re-imagining of a 19th century lens design which allows you to subtly adjust the bokeh and also has the option of adding shaped aperture plates- I couldn’t resist using the snowflake one- kitschy but fun πŸ˜‰

There is a definite learning curve, but I love what I’ve got from it so far!

Then it was on to the presents, including the ever-popular grab-bag with special rules and an amazing riddle-based scavenger hunt by June, our mistress-of-ceremonies.

And finally, food and the usual amazing spread put together by Jackie (with a little help from Stew L.) and lots of fuzzy family time and conversations… and some very tired doggies who had a very busy day!

Brrrrr!

Brrrrr!


Boy it’s cold this morning- 9Β°! But thankfully the girls have their warm coats and it’s absolutely beautiful out here in the woods!
The heat in our apartment can’t quite keep up when it’s this cold so I actually had to put out an extra space heater last night, but hopefully it will warm up a little today and then not be this cold again for a while.
A little quiet time

A little quiet time

Jackie has gone with her nephews to see some Christmas lights, and June is busy getting ready to DM her regular Sunday night online Dungeons & Dragons campaign, so I thought I would take some time in the church to install the pew candles ahead of tomorrow’s Altar Guild decorating- while listening to one of my favorite Christmas albums, the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s Charlie Brown Christmas, on the new church sound system πŸ™‚

Red Doors

Red Doors

I spent a happy hour this evening out in front of the church trying to get an image for the front of this years Christmas Bulletins. Unfortunately I can’t reuse the one I used last year with the steeple in the snow as we now have new front doors on the church!

So, I took my lovely, old Canon 35mm f/2.8 Tilt Shift and braved the cold to take some long-exposure pictures of the new doors, and got a few nice images, including one I think will work quite nicely- though it would have been nice if there were some stars in the sky (but I suppose I can always add them in Photoshop).

It will probably need some tweaking to make it print nicely on our new Konica-Minolta copier, but I think it makes a nice feature of the red doors and has a kind-of winter, we’ll-leave-the-light-on-for-you vibe…

It’s that time again …

It’s that time again …

… time to put the winter boots on June’s car.

At lease now I only have to do one car, as I figure that until we finally retire (ha!) and move north the Subarus will easily handle the small amount of snow we get down here with their AWD and X-mode πŸ™‚