Jennifer Zalewski Studio

I thought it would be cute & festive to take some Easter Pictures of Jack wearing a Bunny Ears headband this Sunday. Apparently, he didn’t think much of my idea. I stepped out to clean the yard and came in to… uh oh.

To get your fill of beautiful greyhounds wearing Easter Bunny headwear, you’ll have to check out Tales and Tales.  Shout out to Bunny the Greyhound who has apparently WAY less of an attitude than Mr. Jack, LOL!

Here’s my newest project (that is, in between hand-coloring all my wilk prints-!).  I thought it would be fun to attempt another white-line linocut, this time of Jack and Lela asleep on the bed.  Sometimes they can be so angelic, LOL!

With a white-line linocut (or woodcut), you carve away the lines of your drawing, separating each color. I’ll fudge this a little bit. Jack’s coat has at least 4 different browns, 2 different grays, and black- no way am I going to outline each one! I’d be working the block for weeks and I think it would end up looking goofy.

My little muses! I love it when they hang out in the studio with me. Jack is usually always there, since I eat dinner while working and God Forbid, he miss an opportunity for food.  Lela is with us very rarely. She has a rigorous evening schedule that includes patrolling the backyard for squirrels, emptying her toy box, patrolling the yard for squirrels, rolling in mud, and patrolling the yard for squirrels, dragging all her toys outside, and patrolling the yard for squirrels. Thank God for the doggy door or I’d probably go insane, LOL. She is quite the busy beaver. But alas! She actually decided to join Jack and I the other night and forgo some patrols. Maybe all the squirrels left town for Spring Break?*

Jen

*Well, all the squirrels may be on vacation but Lela finally had some ONE-ON-ONE with a rodent- Her dream come true. On Saturday I was working in the studio when I looked out to see Lela pouncing around in the grass, going ballistic. I thought she cornered a toad, so I ran out to check. I made Jack go with me, so he wouldn’t take the opportunity to steal my lunch off the table- you KNOW he would do that, he has no shame. Well low and behold, I parted the grass and Lela and I were face-to-face with an angry, hissing, um…. mole?? shrew?? vole?? Both of us were looking at it in pure wonder–I mean, if Lela could’ve talked, she would have been like, “Oh wow! Oh wow! Wow! Look what I found! Look! Holy cow! Listen to that thing YELL! Oh joy!!!” Of course, before we could do anything, Jack shoved us aside, snatched the thing in his mouth and ran off with it. The next 60 seconds ended up being a free-for-all with the poor vole/shrew being tossed around like a tennis ball, screaming bloody murder. When he finally died, oh God, it was so gross, I had to go inside to keep from tossing my cookies. Jack came in after me, bored- Game Over. Lela stayed behind and came in a few minutes later, apparently after rolling in the carcass and getting blood and pieces of intestines all over her fur. She was thrilled. It was NASTY. Believe me, this is NOT something a vegetarian wants to deal with, LOL! C’mon Puppies, give me a break here! LOL.

In the interest of setting up a regular blogging schedule, I am deciding to set up a few “theme” days. Many bloggers do *Wordless Wednesdays*, where they only post a photo (no text, obviously). I LOVE Wordless Wednesdays but given the way my dogs behave, I decided to institute *WTH Wednesdays* instead. Because there’s always some sort of debauchery/silliness/craziness going on around here and a *WTH Wednesday* is as good a day as any to post about it, lol.

Sooooo… drum roll…. Here’s to our first WTH Wednesday!   :

Yep. When I come home to scenes like this, I ask myself, “Why don’t I use crates again???” LOL.

So in between experimenting with my White-Line prints, I decided to sign up for a Printmaking Exchange through BarenForum, a wonderful online community for **all-things relief printmaking**.    The theme of this particular exchange was “Endangered”, with 30 artists signing up.  We’re required to carve and pull 30 prints (using the theme as a guide) and then share them among the group. In the end, we will each end up with a collection of 30 prints from everyone participating in the exchange. Fun, yes? It really is!

Although I had a few ideas for the exchange, I finally decided to do a linocut of Wilk- Polish Wolves. When I visited Poland in 2002, we went to a special reserve of rare Polish animals in Bialowieza National Park, and I saw two wilk “in person.” From what I remember, it was a drizzly morning and they weren’t too excited to see more tourists coming through but… well…. they were stunning.  For years now I’ve been wanting to put my experience in Poland onto paper (or canvas) but everything I’ve tried hasn’t “come out right.” Well, this exchange seemed a great way to kickstart the project. Wilk are an endangered species, protected in Poland. Although they have a fair foothold in the eastern regions, the packs are small and scattered in the west, and their chances of long-term survival are poor.

Anyway, my “in-process” shots aren’t that great, since I have been camera-less– apologies!:

Here’s a shot of the linocut block I carved, printed, and my first try at hand-coloring. I’ve always thought hand-coloring kind of bastardized the fine art of printmaking, but after oggling over a book of Margaret Preston’s hand-colored woodcuts at our local university library… I re-evaluated! Her portfolio, mostly Australian floral and landscapes, is glorious.

This is how the process went:

1. Sketched out my wilk on the linoleum block.
2. Carved it out…
3. Inked it up and printed the block on gray cardstock- so far I’ve printed 27- a few more to go–
4. After they dried, I individually paint each one. I tried quite a few media – acrylic, gouache, watercolor pencils, ink pencils, colored pencils- both used “regularly” and then dissolved in solvent. I decided I liked the watercolor and ink pencils the best. I liked the colors, I liked the “zen-ness” of using them.  One by one, each print was pulled out and colored using the pencils and a bit of water.

And here’s my final. Well, not trimmed down or signed yet, but almost there…

Having struggled for several years with reduction and multi-block linocuts/woodcuts, I’m so glad to have found another technique that gives me all the color and none of the stress! LOL!

BTW, the title of the piece is Wilk w Spoczynku- Polish for “Wolf at Rest.” Image 6 x 8 with the paper size being “Chuban”, which is the traditional Asian woodcut paper size of 10″ x 7.5.”

As promised, some photos from my new Olympus PM-1!!! Yay, I love it already!

Jack, taken in the “Soft Focus” filter…

and in the “Grainy” filter….

Another Jack, this one in the “Pop Art” filter. I love that it makes the colors yell!

Lela, taken in the “Pinhole” filter…

And lastly, I tried to get some good action shots using the “Sports” mode. Not very happy with them, but the camera takes more Frames Per Second than my DSLR, so I must be doing something wrong. Hmmm. Need to explore it a bit more (although WTF, I hate that cameras don’t come with “real” manuals anymore. If I have an issue, the LAST thing I want to do is have to go inside, power up the computer and flip through a PDF. Jeesh). Camera makers, stop skimping on the manual!

And here’s the camera itself (stock photo). So pretty!

I have been drooling over “White-Line Woodcuts” (or “Provincetown Prints”) for about a year now.  When I first started looking at them, I admit I thought they were unattractive. Kind of like when I first thought about adopting a greyhound– “They are so simple and ugly, why would I want to do THAT???” (LOL). Anyway, they have grown on me in the worst way and now I tend to find them much more intriguing than regular ol’ linocuts and woodcuts. I’m not sure why, but I love the brushstroke that comes out in the pieces, instead of regular flat color. I like that the white lines accentuate shape and kind of mess your eyes up (especially with very intricate prints), almost forcing composition and color shapes to play more intimately with the subject. It’s just different and… cool.

The process of White-Line Printing is pretty simple. You have a block (wood, linoleum, whatever). You draw your design. You chisel-out white lines around every design, every different color or object. Then you use a brush and paint the block, print it… wallah!

Since I was experimenting, I decided to use the sketch I based my “Coon Dawg” Oil Pastel on.

Readers of my blog perhaps may remember last October when I excitedly bought a package of Golden Fluid Acrylic paints to play with.  Did I ever play with them? No. This is an unfortunate bad trait of mine–I go gangbusters spending my paycheck on art supplies that I love looking at and oggling over, but become to afraid to use and “mess up..”  I mean, I bought the stuff and spent months iner-library-loaning books on Acrlyic painting how-tos, but totally psyched myself out to even open them and use them. Talk about fear of failure, LOL!  Well I did decide to try them for my first White Line experimentation, which was interesting:The Fluid Acrylics were fun to work with and very transparent- not as much as watercolor but very loosey-goosey. I LOVED working with them because I got such great strokes, but holy crow they dried fast! I had no idea acrylics were so quick. I’d be painting my block and watching them dry almost as soon as my stroke was done! That meant I had to paint tiny areas at once–Paint one stroke, print. Paint one stroke, print. From what I understand, you can’t reconstitute acrylics once they dry so I was really afraid I’d ruin my block letting the color sit on them too long. Ahhhhhh!

Next try was using my Akua Intaglio Printmaking ink. It is a very slow-drying ink, which was nice but can be a bit annoying. I used some Modifier to make it a little more soupy for the brush (next time, I will buy Akua Kolor instead–wby nature it’s more fluid). I had much more time for mixing color and layering, so this one came out better I think, although I lost some brushstroke:

What I didn’t like in the Akua version is that my lines were a bit fuzzier:

Compared to the Golden Fluid Acrylic version, which had very crisp lines:

I wish I had more process photos, but thanks to my young Canon SX20′s death (and I WILL speak ill of the dead, the lousy piece of junk!)–I only have scans of my finished prints. Sigh, next time!

I’m so stoked about this process. It’s REALLY time consuming, but a lot of fun.  Next piece will feature Jack. I’m excited because I think painting his brindle White-Line fashion will be much easier than carving each stripe as I would traditionally in my woodcuts/linocuts. Fun times, fun times!

Jen

I have been a bad blogger lately. This is due to a few things:

1. TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES:  My camera broke! It’s a Canon SX20, not even a year and a half old. This is my fourth- and last- Canon. Ever. Sorry Canon- your quality sucks, your customer service sucks, I am moving on.  I feel bad posting blog entries with no pictures, how boring right? Until my camera broke I had no idea how much I relied on it! Granted, I do have a back up- my Canon XS DSLR which works on a “part-time basis”, no flash, when it wants to, multiple lens errors and shut-downs, with a battery life of about 3 hours. It’s horrid. I’ve spent a lot of time researching what I want next, since it will cost more to fix my SX20 than it is worth. There are so many options out there–and my requirements are a bit all over the place. I want a camera that is little, with a long telephoto for birding, but also that can capture fast-action Bitey-Face/Gator-Mouth wrestling and running. Do I want a compact?  A DSLR? A hybrid? A System?  Well  after a lot of research and driving to multiple camera stores for try-outs, I narrowed it down to ‘system cameras’ which are like tiny DSLRs… my favorites being the Olympus Pen PM-1 and the Sony Alpha Nex 5N. Nikon had a new system out too, J1, but less lens availability. I was not impressed with the Panasonic Lumix system cameras, which initially were #1 on my list.  Well after trying them out in the store the Olympus PM-1 blew them all away… PLUS they came in purple, pink, etc! Not to be too girly but silver and black cameras… boring.  So there we go. The new camera arrived yesterday and hopefully will be raring to go tonight!
2. THE WINTER THAT WAS(‘NT):  The weather has been spectacular. I’m not a hot weather person AT ALL, but we had about 3 weeks of  high 60′s-70′s-low 80′s. That’s nice after a long dark winter.  Besides work, I spent most of the time sitting on a lawn chair in the backyard eating up books while the dogs did… well, whatever dogs do. There was also a lot of napping while laying in the sun, I’m embarrassed to admit.  But oh boy, it felt so good after the long winter!  /  I can’t tell you the hours I’ve spent poring over garden books, tree catalogs, campground maps…
3. THE 3-LEGGED GREYHOUND, PART 43: Jack finished up his physical therapy. There isn’t much more that can be done for him. He’s on 3 legs still. The Iliopsoas flares now and then but what else is causing the lameness, no one knows. Arthritis? Nerve damage? Ugh. I’m starting to wonder now… could this be a TBD as well??? He is definitely Lyme negative, but has never been titered for the babesia, erlichia or other tick diseases that seem to frequent racing greyhounds. I guess that’s our next step. Sigh. He turns 5 today!!!
4. AGILITY FOR “SPECIAL” DOGS:  Lela took an Agility Foundations course and we are starting lots of foundation games. Jack is also starting them to build up back-end strength although he will never be able to do agility. The jury is still out on whether the pups are enjoying the games, or are planning to kill me in my sleep sometime soon.
5. CARS GONE WILD:  I went hiking a couple months ago- did I blog about this?- and I went to open the back hatch of my Scion xB and the handle ripped right off in my hand. There was a whole process involved (long story) but fixed now. I started noticing really bad gas mileage though and recent tracking made me realize I’m only getting 22-25 MPG, what the heck! So this has led to some fantasies and delusions of buying a new car. A minivan actually. Oh God, how I love new car shopping!!!! No new car though- probably a tune-up in the very near future. But I still dream… me and my dogs, traveling in a shiny new Red minivan packed with camping stuff, our canoe on top…Ah.
6. WHY I SHOULD HAVE A SMART PHONE WITH THAT GHETTO APP THINGIE: Another long story made short, aka the Stupid Alert: When driving through the bad section of the city on your way home from work, never pick up a hitchiker. EVER. Even if they give you a huge sob story about how they are broken down and pregnant and scared, and you feel sooooooo bad for them– yeah, they are lying and they are douchebags lol.
7. VOLUNTEER FUNNESS: Is that a word? Jack seems to be enjoying therapy work at the nursing home/assisted living complex. I just finished re-designing the website for his adoption group. We’ve been doing a couple meet and greets with his group too, but they fall on his therapy day which makes things hard schedule-wise. Anyway, keeps us out of trouble (or SHOULD, ah-hem #6).
8. ART SPARK:  I have been working on art! Yay, yay. For some magical reason yet unknown, a huge wave of inspiration and creativity washed into the house and I’ve been working pretty hard. No Greyhound stuff, but some wildlife Linocuts which hopefully I’ll post soon when my camera is ready.  I have been so ‘down’ and uninspired the past couple years–and really burned off printmaking– and although I tried other media none really lit a fire under me the way printmaking used to. I’ve been working on some hand-colored linocuts and even tried white-line (Provincetown) printmaking which is FUN. Every evening I’m so excited to get to the studio and work–what a great feeling!
9. ‘LIFE LIST’ STUFF:   I’m training once again for the city’s annual 10 mile road race. Since I’m doing this, I might as well do a Half Marathon a couple weeks after right-? I dunno. Hmmm.
10. SABRINA UPDATE:  From what I’ve heard, Sabrina is loving her new home! Lela went through withdrawal when she left and I felt bad, but she is back to her normal troublemaker self now, so all is well in Dog Land.

Anyway, that’s it in my exciting world. To Be Continued…

We have a foster for the week! This is Pancho’s Sabrina, a beautiful little lady who just retired from the Daytona Greyhound Track:

We probably fall under the *Worst Foster Homes Ever* category.  I mean, we’re not exactly a role model for impressionable, hapless just-retired track dogs. Jack and Lela steal food shamelessly. Pull on the leash. Swipe food off my plate –whether I’m looking or not. Bark constantly. Treat the furniture like their own personal jungle gym.  Take my stuff. Dump the garbage. Our house is practically a daily 3-ring circus of canine debauchery. But… but. I have to say, I’ve NEVER failed fostering (well, besides Jack who was a Foster-With-Intent-To-Adopt, which doesn’t really count). I don’t foster a lot, but when the need arises I certainly don’t mind helping out. I don’t worry about falling in love… it takes me awhile to connect and a few weeks won’t do it. On that level, it’s pretty easy.

I have to say, I absolutely adore Sabrina though and IF she was available, I might have thought… THOUGHT…. about adopting her. She’s a spitfire, feisty little shit who doesn’t mind getting down-and-dirty… my favorite kind of dog. It didn’t take her long to become BFFS with her Sister From Another Mister, either.

Yeah. Lela and Sabrina were a little unsure of each other at first but have become great friends. Lela even brought out Sabrina’s Inner Amazon Woman.  They are constantly… constantly… playing. Chasing each other, playing tug of war, wrestling. Sabrina wrestles REALLY rough, which Lela loves. Her favorite move seems to be throwing Lela on her back and then using her chest/belly to grind her into the mud as hard as she can. Lee thinks this move is the **Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread** and comes back over and over for more…

How does Jack feel about another Greyhound in the house again? Um…. not much.  Today I came home from work to find poor Sabrina in her crate, covered in urine. Jack had piddled all over her and she had no way to escape! I can’t believe he did that. In the yard he gets pretty snarky towards her.  During Lela-Sabrina Wrestling Matches, I need to keep him leashed and/or muzzled so he doesn’t interfere  as the Fun Cop.

On Sunday, Sabrina goes to her new home. We’ll be sad to see her go, but it’s an exciting step for her. Every Dog deserves a Forever Family!!!

Um…. Happy New Year!

I guess time has gotten away from me a bit. I don’t know why. I don’t feel like anything huge or substantial has happened, but, well, maybe we need a quick little 2012-So-Far-Recap? Here’s what’s been going on in Casa Z:

Jack

I don’t know if I mentioned this but Mr. Jackie passed his initial therapy dog evaluation and is now visiting an assisted living facility! He has three “trial visits” –one per month-before he ‘officially’ gets his wings. I’ve also been bringing him to rescue Meet & Greets to get him out, give him something to do. It’s hard because he can’t do the things he loves to do—go for long hikes, run with me, or play rough in the yard. I’ve kind of been putting off discussing it too much, but now we’re on Month—Nine? Ten?—of injury from the Iliopsoas muscle tear. Daily massages and motion exercises, weekly cold laser therapy.  Based on his progress, he’s been upgraded (downgraded?) from “acute” to “chronic” which means he will never fully heal and it will be something we probably have to deal with, on and off, for the rest of his life. Unfortunately we’re also dealing with complications from being physically unbalanced for so long- stress on his previously-broken hock ( a racing injury), possible nerve damage in his back and not only that, the shift in balance has resulted in a big honking corn on his right pad.  I can’t tell you how frustrating this is for the both of us. Therapy (cold laser, massage, passive motion exercises) have helped the Iliopsoas immensely but still, most of the time Jack is on 3 legs or limping significantly on 4. Last week we started using the ol’ Duct Tape method to smother the corn and that –along with a little hulling- has helped. Because Glucosamine and Omega’s weren’t doing anything, we bumped up to a non-prescription arthritis medicine called Duralactin, which hasn’t had much effect either… because of that… we’re now moving on to try Gabapentin, a prescription. I HATE to have such a young dog (4!!!!) on Gabapentin or other NSAIDs so early in life but at this point, I guess I’m willing to try anything.

Hopefully we can find some meds to help Jack feel better and then we can begin getting him ready for hiking/camping season and earning his CGC (Canine Good Citizen) certificate. I also think he could do Rally or Novice obedience for fun, to keep him occupied. I’ve bought a Clicker and am trying to brush up on Operant Conditioning and “Shaping” which is kind of hard for me to wrap my head around. Since he won’t be able to run with me anymore or do heavy hiking, I’d like to find something fun and easy-going to keep the lil’ boy occupied! Trying to stay positive about it all.

Lela:

It’s hard to believe Lee has only been with us 8 months- it feels like forever (in a good way, lol). She is SO ACTIVE and vivacious. The other day we had a playdate with my friend W and her French Bulldog—they rough-housed for 3 hours straight- then I took her hiking—then we did a trip to 2 different pet stores (looking for clickers, OMG they have tripled in price since they first ‘came out’ in the late ‘90’s!) then she did an hour of squirrel patrol in the backyard. Finally around 8 she went down for a nap. Yowser! After looking around and speaking with some local “dog people”, I found a highly-recommended Agility facility not-too-TOO-far away, and this spring she will begin Foundation Training! I’m hoping it will be a good outlet for her energy.

I also started jogging with Lela twice a week. It’s (emotionally) difficult because Jack can’t come along, and he used to be my running buddy. He cries and cries when we leave.  The weather up here has been relatively warm (we are 47” below normal this season, snow-wise!!) though and Lela could use the outlet, so I’ve started taking her along. She seems to like it a lot! Then I run 3 days by myself during lunch hour at work. I want to build her up gradually for spring.

Not to say it’s been all A++ fun. Lee’s really come out of her shell and in doing so, I’m learning to manage some of her more annoying habits. For example, she tends to get very amped-up and over-stimulated especially when trying to play with Jack (and ESPECIALLY if he won’t play back with her). At first I didn’t think there was anything wrong with her whipping herself up into a frenzy (“dogs will be dogs”), but a few weeks ago it led to a dogfight (their first serious fight!) where Lela ended up with a busted nose and two punctures between her eyes, and Jack had a ripped lower lip and tear on his front leg. Doing some reading, I found that YES, it is possible for dogs to get over-stimulated and to need “time-outs” if they are getting too rough! Just like children! I’ve never had dogs that required this before, but Lela clearly needs a bit of management/guidance when she gets super-duper excited, so she doesn’t spiral too far into the Stratosphere of Insanity, lol. Jack CLEARLY does not like it when she gets into those crazy moods and I need to intervene and calm her down before she thinks it’s okay to go apeshit on him and he decides to give her an A1 Ass-Kicking to take her down a notch. Not that I blame him for doing so. But still.

Art

I admit, I haven’t been doing as much art as I should be. I think that stems from a couple things. 1) this fall, I moved my art studio into the end living room of my house. Unfortunately this end of the house doesn’t get heat. Yep you heard that right! Now in all fairness, I should disclose that I have a small house- like- 700 square feet, if that. So the heat does move around, but there are no direct vents or anything in that end room. Plus the dog door is in there and it isn’t as tight as it used to be. I’m pretty hardy and enjoy being cold much more than being hot BUT after an hour or so of working your fingers and feet start to freeze and instead of putting on a fourth layer of clothes, it’s easier just to abandon the project and just head to the other side of the house to watch TV or something. 2) Second reason I haven’t been doing art has to be the Reading. I’ve been chomping some really awesome books lately including Van Gogh: The Life, which is about 1,000 pages of PURE slobbering WOW and Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend- A must-have for any dog lovers (especially if you grew up watching “Rin Tin Tin: K-9 Cop” on the Family Channel, lol).  Also, I Want my MTV which is great for reminiscing of the good ol’ days of the eighties when I would sneak around trying to catch Said Forbidden Evil Network when my parents weren’t paying attention. *Wink wink*.

I’ve also probably inter-library loaned every Colored Pencil and Pastel book in both the library and university (where I work) system so I could check out some new media. And I’ve read every one- page by page, exercise by exercise.  I love Monotypes but I need to find a nice medium to work with during the week when I don’t have 4 hour chunks of time for all the prep work and clean-up.  Something easy to pick up, put down. No mess. Something I will FALL IN LOVE WITH. I did a few Conte Pencil portraits for my brother for Christmas, and REALLY enjoyed them… well, except I’m not sure I want to work black and white all the time. Then I thought, “hmm. What about colored pencil? I LOVED cps when I was in high school and college.” So I’ve been playing around with them a bit. I have to admit, I don’t like “experimenting” much. I find it’s a waste of time. I want to jump right in, both feet, to a project and have it come out PERFECT. Colored pencils, especially when used with Turpenoid, were colorful and easy to handle (compared to painting with a brush) but require many layers to get those luminescent tones. Unfortunately I have bad wrists (beginnings of carpel tunnel?) and have been sleeping in braces the past few years—I noticed in a few days of using colored pencils, my wrists were really bothering me.  Around this time I happened to read Van Gogh: The Life and something about the book made me think about picking up my Oil Pastels again. Maybe it was all the reading about color and thick paint, and impasto… dunno… but that’s my next step. I’m starting out the year doing portraits of Jack and Lela for the art studio, Jack first! His sketch is almost done. Will post more about that soon.

I AM trying to work on some goals for this year. That’s another post. I’m sure I will be *HangingHeadInShame* when I look back on what I wanted to accomplish- and didn’t—in 2011 but oh well. Better luck this year!

But I do swear, I’m back to my regular blogging program and will have more stuff in a few days. Meantime, here are some photos from the last few weeks… enjoy!

Only the Good Lord Above knows how much, blood, sweat, tears, pleads, threats, teeth grinding, head banging, frantic clickering, and treat dispensing went into this measly photo session near our Pink Christmas Tree. Although both dogs think it’s great fun to steal the tree ornaments with abandon, actually POSING next to it is apparently a very, very dangerous affair. I mean they gave me the whole bit… cowering, ears plastered against their head, hurt expressions, etc.  I’d pose one and the other would jump up and bolt off with tail tucked so far up their ass I wouldn’t be surprised if they got a rash within the next few days. (Okay I’m exaggerating a bit BUT STILL IT WAS A TRAUMATIC PHOTO SESSION ON ALL FRONTS AND THE ONLY PERSON TRYING TO MAKE IT WORK HERE WAS ME).

I hope everyone has a Happy Hanukkah/ Merry Christmas/ Happy Yule/Etc Etc Etc!