Many photos of Christmas

We chose to have a quiet fun Christmas at my parent's house this year. We arrived around 9am and stayed until nearly 5pm. We had a marvelous time, but I missed the days of having Christmas in the mountains with my Grandparents.

The big gift this year was a Wii for Dad. For the first time ever, he got clued. He's usually the clue writer, clue placer and the clue giver, but never the clue recipient. I had the best time writing clues (which I did last year as well for my husband's clue gift ~ which you might remember was also a Wii). Never heard of a "clued gift?" Well let me explain. Sometimes there is a rather large item that you want to give, but instead of just giving the person the gift ... there is a bit of anticipation. The unspsecting person opens up a normal looking gift. In the gift, there is the first clue to where the second clue is. They realize right away that they've been "clue gifted."

Usually 2 to 4 lines per clue are written. Sometimes it's only 3 places and other times it's 5 or 6 places. I'm sure if we really wanted to be annoyingly fun .... we'd have 7 or 8 clues. The first time somoene got clue gifted was me back in good ole 1995. It doesn't happen every year, but it's fun none the less. Whenever I'm the clue writer, I try to give little fun clues inside each clue about what the gift might be. Whenever the final gift is unwrapped .. it's more of a "aha" that's what that clue meant. Generally clues are found somewhere in the kitchen, in the bathroom, and for the first time ever ... one had to walk outside in the cold to find one in the mailbox.

IF you were really lucky, you saw one right here on my blog yesterday. I had it scheduled to post right about the time he would come to the computer for the last clue. VERY hard to schedule. If you've never done this, I suggest you give it a try. Just as a sample of what you might write:

Now that you've found your next clue
It's apparent what we've done to you.
Your next hint or so I've been told
Is where you keep things very cold.

(this was clue number 3 ~ and he had to find the clue in the freezer).

On to the photos of the day.

I took these photos using my new telephoto lens that santa brought me for my camera. The lens has automatic and manual focus. I discovered that I really like the manual focus on this huge lens that is quite heavy indeed for my unsteady hand. I took these photos from a pretty good distance away.

Row 1: Left is the new Nativity Scene. Right is a few candles, water globe and willow tree angels along with the ends of a couple of band director "magical sticks."
Row 2: Snow babies that my Dad painted years ago. They make me smile.
Row 3: Left is the dish that is a MUST. Granny's Mac & Cheese. Right: Trumpet on Tree

The next few photos were taken with our regular lens for the Olympus SLR. We use this lens for traditional picture taking. We can also use the manual focus on it as well as the automatic focus, but we have to change that setting with the camera body instead on the lens itself.

Row 1: Left:My new Willow Tree Angel. Right: Rob with our new birdfeeder
Row 2: Help with my ever needy hair (and check out the velvetta cheese box in my lap)
Row 3: We always get some sort of goodies. Left: Junior Mints Right: Beef Stick