Abby’s letter to Santa. She heard me say that my all-time favorite Christmas gift was my Evel Knievel action figure and stunt cycle and a week later put it on her Santa list. She didn’t seem terribly interested in mailing anything to the North Pole and petered out on the list making. Later she came back and added the ink stamps and the pizza grease stain.
It snowed in Kansas on Christmas Eve and Gina and Abby wanted to see some of the white stuff. We loaded up on the day after Christmas and took off hoping the roads were passable to my parents’ place in southeast Kansas where they got 6-8 inches. The roads didn’t get dicey until we got into Kansas. We didn’t have any trouble until we turned into the driveway at Pleasant Hill Farm and promptly got stuck.
After enduring weeks of a Christmas-fueled Abby, endless viewings of RTRNR and last-minute runs to Toys R Us, the big day finally arrived. It was the first Christmas when Abby was fully cognizant of the implications of the season. I got all my picture-taking junk set up the night before (I used the Strobist Christmas game plan) in anticipation of capturing the surprise and wonder on Abby’s face when she saw Santa’s bounty laid before her. But instead of letting her awaken to her own circadian rhythm, we woke her up, which resulted in her being groggy, confused and in a kinda cranky mood. She did show a little classic Christmas emotion when her jaw dropped upon seeing the half-eaten cookies and empty milk glass left from Santa’s late-night snack.
Time for the annual family Christmas portrait. Merry Christmas to you and yourn.
Strobist info: Last year I used a single reflective umbrella and another flash for a hair light and I had weird shadow issues. This year I used the reflective umbrella on camera right with an SB-600 at 1/4 power and my ghetto foam-core softbox on camera left with an SB-26 also at 1/4. I wanted to keep the light ratio very close. Even though both flashes were on 1/4 power, the different modifiers put out different light levels. The softbox was a little brighter than the umbrella.
Abby met Santa for the first time on Sunday. This is the first Christmas where she really knows what’s going on, Santa and presents and being good and the whole bit. She’s literally been bouncing off the walls. She’s hurt her knee and cracked her head and skinned her elbows.
She is notorious for not enjoying things normal kids really like. So keeping in mind that Santa as a concept is really weird and dudes dressed all in red from head to foot are scary, we coached her extensively before going to the mall. We told her there would be a long line and the whole thing was going to move fast. She’d have to get right up there and talk to Santa and smile when told to for the picture.
She went right up to him and got on his lap and told him what she wanted. And she at least looked toward the camera when we told her the picture was coming.
What’s the one thing you don’t want to do when acquiring a Christmas tree? Drink the goat water. We figured we couldn’t put off getting a tree any longer, so we went to Motley’s Christmas Tree Farm and Pig Racing Stadium on Sunday. Motley’s is chock full of holiday fun. There’s the petting zoo, the racing pigs, the shop full of Christmas-themed junk, the hayride and, of course, a field full of Christmas trees.
Gina started breaking down the Christmas tree this evening and I protested, saying we hadn’t shot our annual family Christmas portrait. I use “annual” loosely here. So I got all my pitchure takin’ junk out. In hindsight, it would have been better to think of this earlier in the season. I would have shaved and worn a decent shirt and we would have combed Abby’s hair.
We had us a whole mess of Christmas this year. First, we moved to another city a couple of weeks before the big day. Then for the big day loaded up and went to Branson to see Mimi and PawPaw. That’s where I gave Abby the jack-in-the-box that has apparently been giving her nightmares ever since.
We got a late start, what with the moving and all, but we finally put up our Christmas tree. I don’t know what the deal is, but Little Rock has a dearth of your tradition Christmas tree lots. And by dearth, I mean none. We finally ended up at Cantrell Gardens where word was the trees were grossly overpriced. But one of the advantages of waiting until three days before Christmas is that you can get a $60 tree for half price. And a $20 tree stand for half price, too. Sweet.
Our tree is only five feet tall, much shorter than what we usually get, but this year it seems like we have enough ornaments to properly cover the tree.
I set used the Strobist’s recommendation on how to light a living room for these types of family events but I think I put the flashes in the wrong places. (It worked a lot better for Thanksgiving dinner.) Plus I had the camera on the focus mode where it chooses what to focus on. I thought that would make it easier for Gina to get some shots of me and Abby. The camera invariably focused on the tree and not on the people. I need to get this right before Christmas Day.
Fayetteville gussies up its downtown square every year for Christmas. The city makes a big deal out of it. We’ve never been so we thought we ought to go before blowing this popsicle stand. I have to say I was underwhelmed. It was fairly pretty, but it was tough to find a good photo. Maybe if I had my tripod and I weren’t doing a family outing and the wind weren’t blowing about 50 mph, I’d have got some better photos.