Merry Christmas 3

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and hope you all spend this special Holiday with family and friends.

I photographed Santa during a tree-lighting ceremony in Bonita Springs. He certainly seemed to be enjoying getting his photos taken despite very long line-ups of children. The snowman with fresh falling snow and house in the background made an interesting Christmas image, which I have used to design a custom Christmas Card for a relative. The houses shown in the third image were decorations on a property here in Holyrood. Since they were lit up at night, I also photographed them after dark.

For several years I have photographed Christmas decorations on other peoples' properties but have to admit that I have never put up outside decorations in my adult life. In the early 70's I was concerned about "wasting" energy and the health of the environment and felt I was doing my part in helping conserve energy by NOT getting involved. Not only were trees killed unnecessarily, but the world was in an energy crisis back then and I felt that lighting trees outside was a waste of precious energy. Needless to say, not too many people got involved in that aspect of conservation.

Over the years I have watched outside decorations go from a few lights on a tree or a wreath, to near-Holyrood productions with special effects. These days, some people are "into" decorating the outside of their homes and many towns and cities have contests for the best theme and concepts. In some areas, whole neighbourhoods and streets get together to have the "best" decorations. I have even heard of some places where homeowners feel pressured into putting up more decorations than they normally would because their neighbours want to win "best decorated street". Like many other aspects of Christmas, decorating has become over-commercialized.

Photos of the Day are for sale as stock photographs
and photographic enlargements.

They can also be purchased as slide shows
and/or wallpapers/screensavers.