Hey! Merry Christmas. Happy Hannukah. Happy Kwanza. Happy Whatever

boojum said:
It's that time of year. The days are getting longer and we are all relieved. Let's all be happy and all be grateful we have this great board.
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On a contrary note (and true to form!), I love the early sunsets around the time of the solstice. I can be out shooting during the "golden hour" and still be home at a reasonable time for dinner and a leisurely evening. But yeah, I'm happy and grateful for RFF, and a lot else as well!
And Happy Festivus, for the rest of us... 😉
 
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanakkuh- both are Today.

The Christmas Stockings have just been filled, and gifts placed under the tree. A Nikon Df with a 50/1.4 AF-Nikkor has been placed in a strategic location for pictures in the morning. And now- time to go back to bed.
 
Retro-Grouch said:
On a contrary note (and true to form!), I love the early sunsets around the time of the solstice. I can be out shooting during the "golden hour" and still be home at a reasonable time for dinner and a leisurely evening. But yeah, I'm happy and grateful for RFF, and a lot else as well!
And Happy Festivus, for the rest of us... 😉
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I like the extended dusk during November and December. Beautiful, peaceful light.

Good wishes to everyone for 2025.
 
Happy Christmas, or happy holiday season if you prefer to all.

I’ve been tied up the last few weeks - new house and too much work - but will be back soon. Meanwhile, as well as being grateful for all the many blessings, which includes this worldwide community, I am looking forward to the sun doing a little more than rolling along the hill behind the house between 10.30 and 3 each day!

Mike
 
It's been a truly weird holiday this year for me and my family. Weirdest and least festive in memory. Lots of reasons and events.....but somehow I don't feel depressed or particularly unhappy. All of my family are still here and doing better (almost weren't). Should be enough.

...And my wife and I did were able to do gifts this morning over some excellent coffee. Just us since my son had to stay home with the flu. Sure, that was disappointing but I was still able to give my wife an amazing piece of art she had been admiring for a long while at the local gallery. Sold a few high end photo pieces to cover it. Smile on her face..... totally worth it! I wasn't using those super- angulons anyway.

Just a little holiday story for y'all. My absolute best to all of you at my favorite (and only) online hangout 💚
 
While it was not the happiest time of the year for us, Santa was really good to us. He sent us lots of new friends (and a chance to be with some older ones). As usual, let the pictures answer. They always do it better.

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Nikon Z5, Voigtlânder 40/1.4 Nok...oh, hell. That stuff doesn't matter, really. Merry Christmas.




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Back to the Future
Spoiler, Valentino Balboni missed out and arrived in Bethlehem...

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Well, it's now Boxing Day. And we have survived. At least most of us have survived. I hope. Truly.

My Christmas was different this year. An eventful and varied day for me.

on the 24th, by car and driver to Malang, a delightful and cool small city in the hills of East Java (Indonesia). For an overnight stay, a memorable breakfast, a swim in the hotel pool, then a gala lunch with local friends made all the merrier by Java Sunrise cocktails and a shared bottle of Iceland sugar cane vodka mixed with fresh mixed fruit juice, slices of lime and heaps of ice cubes. And of course food, far too much of it, but well, it's Christmas, isn't it?

In the afternoon after another refreshing swim, by car along a narrow and winding paved-potholed road to the Bromo Hills with an hour's stop at Nongkojajar, a once-thriving Dutch colonial resort town now reinvented as an agriscience community, to look at market gardens, local architecture, the pasar (= market, colourful if barren of interesting tropical fruits and other culinary treasures), a ten-minute stroll up and down the Main Street, pose for seemingly endless photo ops with locals and politely fend off one local belle who insisted I hop on her motorcycle to be taken to the local imam who would marry us (!), then a slow cruise along a winding mountain road, with occasional rain squalls and low hanging cloud to cover the landscape in an eerie greyish glow. Fortunately for me after my indulgence in local hooch, I had an experienced hire river to negotiate all the hairpin turns along the way.

Finally home to my villa in Surabaya by 5 PM for a long nap with the house cats and at 9 PM, an alfresco late dinner with local friends who kindly brought many plates of leftovers from their own gala Christmas family lunches. I ate and drank too much and landed in bed just before midnight, fat, happy, and thoroughly stuffed with good things such as Indonesian cooks can provide.

Truly a memorable day, if somewhat less merry by not being with and sharing the largesse with my (otherwise loved) family and friends in Australia. Times to be relived in March when I return home.

I've just downloaded the day's photos. In all 109 images, all seemingly keepers. But I would think that...

All this said, my late good wishes to all here for a happy and enjoyable 'silly' season - silly as it should be, and also fun. Christmas is now past and Boxing Day is on with all its usual capitalist vengeance, but the new year is yet to come, then it will be '25. Time sure flies!
 
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