Merry Christmas y'all

Merry Christmas internet! My gift to you is the gift of knowledge, passed on in my last 2 instructional posts, this information will no doubt prove invaluable should you wish to give your parents a heart attack or smuggle excess baggage on a long haul flight. Information is the gift that keeps on giving.

Last night we had Dad's side of the family's Christmas bash, a great night of catching up with seldom seen relatives, sampling home made beers and wines and stuffing ourselves full of amazing food. Dad's one of 5 kids and because the venue of Christmas gets rotated each year the last time I was at this house was 5 years ago. Or at least it would have been if I wasn't snowboarding in Austria. My count back concluded that I'd not been to Chris and Jo's house in 10 years. I'm pretty sure I was wearing a hyper colour t-shirt last time I was there (although surely I wasn't wearing hyper colour at age 21? SURELY!?!) It was the perfect venue for a great night, nesstled in the southern Adelaide Hills surrounded by gum trees and wilderness it was the polar opposite of my time in London and I loved it! (as a side note this time last year I was also somewhere pretty amazing, taking in the Northern Lights in Norway - if you scroll down this post a bit you'll see some photos)



We got all bar 3 cousins in for this photo, one of the most complete shots we've had in recent years (or perhaps not, I just assume because I've not been there no one has!). Anyway, here's my extremely good looking family.



It's funny, when a family is young and kids are running round everywhere Christmas is a magical time of gifts and excitement, but as the kids become adults their aunties and uncles stop giving them presents and the gifting skips a generation. It all becomes about this guy, a handsome devil of a 91 year old I call Grandpa.



And here are the kids of the family....



Everyone loves a cheesy fake laughter photo (although this one almost looks real doesn't it?)



Today we had a low key lunch with the immediate family and Mum's mum. I took the chance to experiment with a bit of off camera flash using my 580EXII as the on camera master (bounced off the ceiling set at -1 exposure) and Dad's 430EXII as the slave to the right. It's a pretty subtle effect but I was really pleased with how the lighting turned out.



Have a good one all!!