Merry Christmas to All!

Just a quick note wishing everyone a very merry Christmas!

Christmas-ness

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Let your heart be light,
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight."


I don't know about you, but I've been having quite a fun time taking all sorts of Christmas-y photos. Especially ones with Christmas lights/bokeh. By the time the month is over, I'm going to have so many random Christmas related pictures.

I had some fun the other day taking picture of our tree while zooming in or out with the lens and a slower shutter speed. It's very entertaining.

Then there's all those decorations that I set up in front of the tree, so I can get some nice bokeh in the background. I love Christmas.

Cranberries + White Chocolate + Oats

For Thanksgiving, we bought a big bag of cranberries from Costco for cranberry sauce. We had tons left over, so I searched the internet for baked goods with cranberries in them, and came up with these cookies. They're pretty much oatmeal cookies with cranberries and I also added white chocolate chips.

The recipe called for dried cranberries, but just used the fresh ones. They taste really good, but the cranberries were a little sour. Next time I'll add some sugar, or something.

I found the recipe on the Food Network website.

I shot these photos out in the cold on our back deck. I plugged in the lights inside and brought them out on the deck, a few feet from the cookies, to get some nice bokeh.

Christmas Link-up: Christmas Lights

(I was having some technical difficulties with the linky not working properly, so if you had linked up before, you'll need to re-do that below.)

It's time for week two of A Very Merry Christmas Link-up! Remember, all linkys will be open all month, so keep joining with your photos!

(If your new, or would like more info about the link up, you can visit, this post.)

Week 2  - Christmas Lights

Anything from on a Christmas tree, on a house, or anywhere else you can find some decorative lights. They don't have to be in focus, either. Some cool bokeh shots would count as well.

Joining is easy. Just put together a post with a photo(s) that fit with this weeks theme, Christmas Lights, add my Christmas Link Up button, and come back here and add your post to the linky. Remember to post a link to the post, not your main blog address. Also, go ahead and check out all the other posts that are linked up. That's what makes this fun!

<center><a href="http://sereinasphotography.blogspot.com/search/label/VMCL%202011" target="_blank"><img alt="Very Merry Christmas Link-up" src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af49/sereinalovesvintage/Blog/VMCL2011Button.png"/></a></center>

Christmas Light Bokeh

Now that we got our Christmas decorations and lights out, I thought I would play around with taking portraits with Christmas lights bokeh.

I set two bar stools at the top of our stairs and draped a tablecloth then Christmas lights from them. I placed Daniel a few feet from the background and use my widest aperture (f/1.8) to get the nice bokeh. For the lighting, I opened up the front door, which lets lots of natural light on the staircase.

Today is Christmas Eve...

... And I'd like to wish you all a very merry Christmas! 

Remember: Jesus is the real reason for the season.

Cookies!

I love baking and decorations sugar cookies every December. There as fun to make as they are to eat! Chocolate crinkles (we call them chocolate snowballs) and snickerdoodles are some other favorites.

I'm loving the bokeh in the background in this shot.

Christmas lights

I was messing around with the wireless flash and trying some dramatic lighting.

What do you like to bake this time of year?

Snowmen

There's nothing more winter-y than a snowman. They happen to be my mom's favorite, so this time of year we have lots of snowman decorations around.


I really don't know why this guy is wearing a sweater and hat. He's going to melt really fast... ;-)



A cute little snowman family!



I'm linking up to Kellie's Yuletide Farmgirl Festival at A Maiden's Musings. I'm sure she'd love it if you did too!

"Hark the Herald Angels Sing..."

"...Glory to the newborn king!

Peace on earth and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled"

Joyful, all ye nations rise

Join the triumph of the skies,

With the angelic host proclaim:

"Christ is born in Bethlehem"

Hark! The herald angels sing,

"Glory to the newborn King!"