Christmas' Last Gasp & Happy New Year!

The last of the Christmas pics.  I just love how the outside lights look in the rain.  Since I was planning on taking everything down between Christmas and New Years, I had to take the opportunity to shoot them.

These two were through the kitchen window.

We had the kids over for Christmas Day and we did munchies and deli sandwiches.  I also baked up some Italian knot cookies and I was dying to try these brownie trees.  They came out pretty good!

I should've taken a pic of the table with all the food on it but I was so busy putting everything out and everyone was digging in so all I got was a pre-visit picture of the Christmas crackers, cards and scratch tickets.  No one but me ever heard of crackers before, but they seemed to enjoy them, and we all wore our paper crowns the rest of the day.

Later that night, I went back outside to take a couple of pics of my neighbour's laser lights up in the trees.

This is with the brightness boosted quite a bit, as it was roughly 8:00 pm when I took them.

Another house down the street had them as well.

Couple more pics of the kitchen window.

I hope everyone has a happy and safe New Years Eve!  I always attempt to stay up for the ball dropping in New York but the past couple of years we were well on our way to sleepydreamland by 11 pm.  Gone are the days of all night Dead shows at the Oakland Coliseum! 

Happy New Year!

Date Night Downtown

Every holiday season I make it a point to watch 'Moonstruck', which then makes me crave Italian food.  There is a restaurant here in town called Mezza Luna, and it's been there since I think the 1930s.  I went a few times with my family as a kid.  Several years ago it burned down but the family rebuilt.  Despite living here for over 4 years, we never went (except for the Paint Night I did in March).  I told Russell I was dying for good Italian food, so we went on Dec. 23rd.  

The decorations inside were absolutely GORGEOUS.

The food was amazing.  We got fried mozzarella to start off and it was to die for, esp. the marinara. The salads were even outstanding, as was the bread.  Russell got prime rib and he could practically cut it with his fork.  My stuffed shells in meat sauce were deeeeelicious.  We are hoping to go again tonight or tomorrow!!!!

This is the street side of the restaurant.  How gorgeous!

Since we were already out and on Main Street, I asked him to take me down to the park so I could get a few snaps.  The town decided that they were not going to put the lights and scenes at the 2 rotaries at either end of town, but they at least put up stuff in the park.  It was raining and I had no tripod with me.

This was new....and I have to say he looks a bit psycho.  Or angry.  Or both.

 If you ever find yourselves in Buzzards Bay, a stop at Mezza Luna is an absolute MUST.

Decorations and Cookies

This year flew by, and December was no exception.  I was very remiss in not getting any pictures of Christmas lights in town and in our neighbourhood.  Oh and speaking of lights, my totally awesome psychedelic spotlight died after just a few weeks and I had to take it back.  But they were sold out so I got my money back.  I was sooooo bummed.  Anyways, I didn't take hardly any pics and the ones I did take, I neglected to post until now. 

I shot this pic of a neighbour's house with the laser lights, but I didn't feel like dragging my tripod out so this is what I got.  It's not too bad actually.

Sunrise on Dec. 17th

I had to go to the Cape Codder Resort in Hyannis for an appointment and I was pleasantly surprised at how beautifully decorated it was.  This glass sculpture was created by McDermott Glass Studios in Sandwich.  Clearly influenced by Dale Chihuly's work!  You can't see it but there are lights that change colour inside.  

I love Christmas train villages!!!!!!

This Santa sleigh rotated around in the air.

If I hadn't had an appointment, I would have been roaming around shooting more photos.  I think they said Santa comes in on weekends or something and I guess that's where he sits.

I love gingerbread cookies but it seems that no one else does, so I made a batch for me.  I got a couple new cookie cutters this year:  Seattle Seahawks logo and a Sasquatch.  The Hawks cutter is going to take some practice. 

 I love the Sasquatch one! I'm going to have to make a batch of just Bigfoot.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Christmas 2015

Despite being really sick at the beginning of the month, I managed to get all my decorating done. This year I went really slow and did it over the course of 3 days and it went way easier than in years past when I open all the boxes at once and try to figure it out.  

This is our 2015 ornament that Russell picked out at the Glass Museum.  I love it.

I ended up caving in and buying the Sandwich ornament.  I figured we should have one since it's our hometown.

The kitchen window looks pretty lit up at night.