I usually have a holiday party on December 21, with a little solstice bonfire. I make the fire in my Weber grill to honor the city ordinance that fires be containable, and the flames still get impressively high. For six years, in rain and in snow, I've enjoyed this tradition, which I learned about from my Finnish friend Jaana (they have huge bonfires in Finland!). This year, unfortunately, my grill stood flameless: It was just too bitter cold and too freakin' windy for the fire to light and stay lit. I was a little bummed.

Then today I got a Christmas card from my niece Sam that just made me smile out loud (um, you know what I mean). My granddogs‡ visited Santa Paws at their home in Colorado Springs! Koda is on the right, and she's looking quite pleased and proud in her Santa hat. The antlers really suit Xerxes; he looks so natural wearing them. And I love his tongue hanging out--it's a great touch. ("OK, Santa! I'm ready. Let's get the sleigh. Oh boy oh boy oh boy!") Even though I'm more of a cat person, I enjoyed taking the dogs to the dog park when I visited my niece in June. Koda liked to play fetch with the other dogs, and Xerx liked to wander around the edges of the park sniffing everything. They're both well-trained, lovable animals.

And finally, remember my posts about camera recommendations? I was looking for a new camera partly because I thought mine was too clunky and mostly because the LED display no longer worked for aligning the shot. Well, and this is truly embarrassing because, honestly, most of the time I'm pretty organized and not too dumb, it turns out it wasn't the LED that wasn't functioning, it was my brain! After pointing Frances to her camera's manual online, it occurred to me it had been a long time since I looked at my own camera manual. (I'm not one to ignore user guides, especially as I used to write them as a technical writer!)

Oh my. Heh heh. So, so much information in there. Mainly, there's a button that turns off the LED to save battery life (and verily my batteries have in fact lasted a lot longer since not using the LED preview!). This button is right next to the button you press to download photos to the computer. I must have accidentally pushed this button when downloading or when pulling the camera out of my pocket or purse.

And not only that, but you wouldn't believe all the other nifty features my camera has, which I had no clue about: I can shoot movies (with sound!) and there are settings for panoramic views, portraits, and different conditions such as nighttime, snow, beach, indoors, and even underwater! I knew I could override some of its settings, like telling it not to use the flash, but it turns out there are a bunch more high-end manual features I can set too, like selecting the shutter speed and aperture values. I don't even know what that means, but it must be good!

I'm so glad I didn't buy another camera yet because this one will suit me just fine. And instead of thinking of it as a klunky point-and-shoot, I now think of it as a very svelte higher-end camera. Problem solved.

I wish you all a happy holiday season and a great new year.
Frohes Fest und guten Rutsch!
~ Santa Monica

‡ My friend Carole and Rose both enthusiastically talk both about their grandkids and granddogs, and if my niece had kids they would be my grand nieces and nephews, so I guess I can call her dogs granddogs, too! Hey, I talk to plants and I'm a cat lady. I'm not worried about what people think!