72/365 - The Christmas Feast

I didn't know which photo to choose to represent yesterday (Christmas), but this one seemed apt. (It is, after all, a day of feasting.) We had a fun and festive day visiting with my mother's side of the family (and then later on, coming here to exchange gifts with my immediate family). The rest of our Christmas Day photos are on the photostream (at Flickr). One of these days (soon), I'm also going to upload more photos from the early Christmas we celebrated with my father's side of the family.

I hope your Christmas was merry and bright!

69/365 - Gloria in Excelsis Deo

I took this photo of part of our nativity scene yesterday (day 69), but I must admit that I didn't play around with the layers, textures, and colors until today (day 70). I'm still counting it, though. (g)

I suppose it's possible to go too far with layers and textures, but it's so addictive! Today's photo used three layers. First, there's the one I took yesterday-- the nativity scene. The other two are older photos from a special folder kept for occasions just such as this. There's a rainy windshield and an unusual play of light through the glass block window in our bathroom.

67/365 - Divinity

Granny sent some sweet treats home with us, yesterday evening, and I thought this one-- called "divinity"-- was worth photographing, primarily because I will always associate this homemade candy with holiday get-togethers at my paternal grandparents' house.

Divinity is a very sweet, light, nut-laden confection. I've always thought of it as a Southern goody, but apparently it may not be peculiar to this region.

I don't know Granny's recipe (& so ought to ask, one of these days), but there are of course many to choose from online. On one such recipe web page, I found a Google ad for "diabetes recipes". Way to take the joy out of Christmas sweets, Google! (g) ...But the stuff is almost pure sugar. Definitely not an everyday snack.

66/365 - Christmas Peeps!

Those Christmas Peeps must be really good! ;o)

(This is Olivia's reaction after opening a gift at my paternal grandparents' Christmas party, yesterday afternoon.)

58/365 - Curlicues

This is what happens when you wait too late to take your Project 365 photo for the day, then don't want to use a flash to take the gazillionth photo of your Eskie. If there's a Christmas tree about, you're bound to start taking silly snaps of it. This (purposely) blurry one was my favorite of the bunch.

(I've fallen into the habit of taking my photos later in the day, then not getting around to posting them until the next day. I ought to try not to do this too much, though. I think the next step would be forgetting it altogether.)

56/365 - Our Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree is up and fully decorated. 

The lights make all the difference in a tree.  Without them, it wouldn't be half as beautiful. 

50/365 - Christmas Lights

(I've made it to the fifty-day mark!)

We put up our Christmas tree, but it's still not completely decorated. It's pretty even as it is, though. Surprising, how much difference in mood a few strands of Christmas lights can make. . .

(There's something strange here, though. Maybe I need to look into cleaning the lens. . . This was taken with the DSLR. The point-and-shoot is nice, but Donald was right-- the SLR is better. There's really no comparison.)

30/365 - Candy Cane Collection

I've been working on some Christmas-themed polymer clay things, lately.  These tiny candy canes are waiting to be worked into some larger projects.  Making miniature candy is lots of fun, but it's also fairly time-consuming.

Editing:  Resize, Curves, Color Balance (was too yellow), Sponge Tool (to slightly desaturate the quarter), Ortonizing technique, & Unsharp Mask.