Anyone I'm done, well, I say done, I'm sure there are some things still left to do but if they don't get done it's not a big deal. The presents are wrapped, the turkey is defrosting, the tree is up and decorated. I wanted to post a photo of my tree but it is so difficult to capture the look of it properly. I think it's because it is sitting in the bay window and the light coming in behind just completely throws the front of the tree into darkness, also not helped by the time of year when it feels much darker outside anyway.
So, the tree. I love our tree. It has real candles on it! I know, I know, you are probably all saying "What? Are you mad?", and yes we are probably a little but we've had real candles on our real tree ever since our first Christmas together. It's a german thing (Richard is german for those of you who haven't realised this yet...) and when we were first married we tried to combine some of his german Christmas traditions in with mine. The candles were one of them. I love them. For those of you thinking of the safety aspects... the children have grown up with real candles and know to stay away. We never light them and then leave the children in the room unattended. In fact we never leave the room unattended when the candles have been lit at all. Richard is in charge of 'candle placement'! It is his job to make sure that the tree we buy is suitable for candles (enough branches sticking out far enough to hold a candle and not burn the branch above). It's one of the reasons we take our tree buying seriously, we need to look at the tree from every angle. It can't be too bushy, it needs to be a wide triangular shape... Then once the candles have been placed it's also his job to keep a very close eye on them, the first time of lighting especially. We need to tweak their positions sometimes when they've first been lit but then they are usually OK.
I'll take a photo of the candle lit tree tonight in the meantime I've been playing with bokeh! I've taken this style of photo in the past without even realising that it was a 'style' but after reading a recent blog post by Amy I thought I'd have an attempt myself. I also did a bit of research and found out about shaped bokeh and well, let's say I stopped everything I should have been doing and had a play (click on any of the photos to enlarge them):
The last 2 photos were taken in the style of shaped bokeh and, even though they aren't anywhere near perfect, I am pleased with the results. These are not photoshopped or manipulated post photo at all. If you are interested in knowing how I did this I'll post on this another time...
Finally I would just like to wish everyone who reads my blog a Merry Christmas and a fabulous 2010.
3 comments:
It's been great 'meeting' you Jools, loving the bokeh photos, and would like to know how you made the shaped lights. I can't begin to imagine how you fix real candles to a tree, mine would be a disaster, I just know it would! Paul would need to check the house insurance VERY carefully before I lit the first match!
Have a great Christmas!
Gorgeous bokeh photos Jools, I've yet to achieve this in a way I'm happy with at all. So gave up again this year LOL Hope you've had a fab christmas, and look forward to meeting up for a "new year" coffee soon xx
Great shots Jools, I had a go too, but alas could not get far enough away from the tree to get the right results, pesky walls in the way. LOL
But where are the shots of your tree candles all nicely lit? My friend's husband is part Austrian and they have lovely tree candles, but then Andreas also does the traditional tree preparation of removing undesirable branches and relocating them to better locations in the tree! Kelly just leaves him to all the tree faff... for her own sanity.
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