Christmas Morning

Those of us here in the Northeast take our white Christmases very seriously. It's just not right if there's not snow on the ground...and by snow I mean the white, fluffy stuff that covers the ground and sits on the pine trees, creating a stark contrast between deep green and white. While the weather is supposed to warm up in these regions starting later today, I think that nobody here can complain that it wasn't a white Christmas. And with it came the opportunity for some of the traditional Christmasey photos, complete with snow.

Otherwise, Christmas for myself and family just isn't the same anymore. Since the death of my grandmother in late December three years ago, the holiday has just never been what it once was. Even before Grandma's passing, the joy and excitement that Christmas always conjured up in my spirit when I was younger just seemed to be waning from year to year. This year working as a seasonal temp in a toy store helped me to gain some insight into what made Christmas so magical as a child. I think it was all the toys and all the surprises. In these past few weeks as I watched insane parents spend hundreds of dollars on toys for their kids, I realized that's what instilled such a sense of magic in me at Christmas when I was younger. As a child, I was so much easier to surprise—just give me a boat-load of toys all wrapped up under the Christmas tree. Sure, they may cost a fortune, and end up in the landfill or garage sale before next Christmas, but for those few moments on Christmas morning, those toys brought joy immeasurable.

That's certainly not to say that I am ungrateful for this Christmas. I was blessed with plenty of "grown-up" toys (get your mind out of the gutter!), such as clothes and other nice, useful, practical gifts. I guess it just seems that as I get older, that childlike joy of Christmas fades, even as I try each season to relive the nostalgia of Christmases gone by.

The answer, I suppose, is to not use past Christmases as a benchmark in judging the current season. The answer is to enjoy each Christmas holiday and all it's memories to the fullest, while not losing sight of departed family members and traditions, but making new ones instead.

With that said, enjoy the photos, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmastime

Christmastime...this word still drives me crazy. Only this year did I discover that within the labyrinth of rules & exceptions that compose our English language is the combination of "Christmas" plus "time" into one word acceptable.

In any case, I digress. This year has been a very busy Holiday season to say the least with work and all. I've managed to work more overtime than I ever dreamed of, hence my lack of time for updating my blog and pursuing life's finer interests, like photography. This past Monday, however, I was able to enjoy some much-needed time away from the worksite, and as such I used that time to work on building up my portfolio of winter/Christmas photos around my hometown. The temperatures were less than balmy, but the fluffy, fresh snow coupled with gray skies made for a nostalgic holiday ambiance. As a quick aside, most people, myself included, prefer sunny skies to gray ones. However, come winter time, I love gray days. Yes, the light is softer and more diffused for photography purposes, but there's something more to overcast skies. It just adds a feeling of winter that sun reflecting off of snow can't seem to add.

So as not to end on a gloomy note, I leave you some of my new photos from around the homefront. While certainly not nearly as elaborate as my experiences spending Christmas in mid-town Manhattan last year, my hometown did not disappoint either. Enjoy the latest from the Studio, and Merry Christmas.