Hope I’m not boring you all with these but I’m so proud that I’m being good with keeping up with this pages that I just have to show them off. Today’s page focusing on the only Christmas-y element of today: decorating our tree (while we watched the very exciting Packers-Giants game). Other than tree decorating, today also included Indian food and the Muppets Movie (very excellent) with Matt’s buddy, Mark and the previously mentioned football game watching. And, of course, I made this page.

Our Christmas tree will never be one of those fancy all-in-one-color deals. See, Matt’s been collecting Christmas ornaments since he was little so we probably have over 200 in total. We don’t pick them up nearly as often, usually only on special vacations (though we got zero on our last Europe trip). This year, with this giant tree  - it takes up a good portion of our living room – we finally have more than enough space to show them all off. Even took three full strands of lights to cover it – two mega strands (400 lights) and one normal (200 lights).

I was very happy with the performance of my 50 mm/f2.9 that Matt got me for a graduation gift. The lens let me easily take photos of the tree, despite the fact is was dark out and the only lighting was the tree lights and a light a good 50 feet away in the dining room. In ten shots, I had four perfectly in focus, like the one I picked that really shows off the different ornaments.

No blog post yesterday because I didn’t have a chance to get back on a computer after work (and, even if I had, it would have been the computer without PSE on it, anyway). I had a full day of work then we drove up to Baltimore to see a performance of Handel’s Messiah. We got stuck in a ton of traffic which meant we arrived 30 minutes late to our dinner reservation. Thankfully, it’s a local place and very chill so we didn’t have a problem getting a table, anyway. We then headed to the Meyerhoff for the concert, arriving 5 minutes after they started due to issues finding where to park. The concert was more than worth the traffic and waiting to be seated. I really liked that they provided a copy of the words (not the music, this wasn’t a sing-along). Despite not having any chance to take photos at the performance, I did manage a cell phone shot of some of the lobby decorations so I could still make a page for yesterday.

Today was equally busy. We spent last night at Matt’s parents’ house and slept in rather late. We had breakfast then went out and picked out our Christmas tree. After that, we grabbed lunch and did our usual Costco/Wegman’s trip. Matt and his dad went back to Costco and got a mattress set (you know, so my parents will actually have somewhere to sleep when they’re here in a few weeks). While they were gone, Matt’s mom and I did dishes, finally took down the chairs and tables from Thanksgiving, and cleaned out the room where the bed was going. Day ended with paninis for dinner and scrapbooking while watching Charmed (Matt’s playing on his PC in the other room). Of course, I only scrapped about the tree picking as no one cares about the rest of today. I don’t even think I care anymore. Heh.

[No promises to blog daily but I would like to blog my December Daily pages. December Daily is a scrapbooking project where you, well, scrapbook daily each day in December. My version lasts from Dec 1 to 25th because, well, I can only stick to something for so long.]

It’s only the first of the month so we have almost no signs of the holiday season in our house so far. We’re picking up our tree this weekend and, otherwise, all we’ve got is a wreath on our front door. My plan was to take a photo of that to scrap for today but, well, working a ten hour day isn’t conducive to getting a decent photo of something on your front door. So, I had to improvise. One of the things I promised myself with this whole project was that I wouldn’t stress about making sure my stories were all Christmas-focused.

Today’s focus, then, is on the lack of signs of Christmas (and how Thanksgiving, only a week ago, still lingers in our house). Instead of photograping the not yet washed wine glasses or still taking over our dining room large plastic tables, I captured my dessert: leftover banana bread and vanilla ice cream.

I first made this version of the page but wasn’t happy with how light the background was and how you can’t really see the border.

Here’s a different version, with a darker background and the border recolored a dark green. I rather like this to the point what I’m tempted to recolor all of my pre-made pages like this one.

Tomorrow, we’re going to see Handel’s Messiah up in Baltimore where I won’t really be able to take photos inside but I hope I can capture what I’m sure will be an excellent night at the symphony.