"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven."  Saddly the time was Saturday night, and the activity was another white elephant gift exchange with the couples from our church foundation group, and a bittersweet goodbye to Mattagor.  It was almost a year ago to the day that our family grew by one inanimate member during the last white elephant gift exchange we had with the same group of folks.  That was the night we brought home Mattagor, and what a glorious night that was.  We (and by 'we' I mean 'I') quickly grew fond of this beautiful half lion, half bird (falcon?), and he sat proudly on my desk in my office at home for several weeks, keeping me company while I edited photos (and occasionally voiced tirades at Photoshop).  Granted, he wasn't much a of a conversationalist, but he didn't need words to be understood.  His quiet grace & dignity and his piercing blue eyes spoke volumes.  We were buds. Anyway, over the course of the next two months, unfortunately "Matty" ended up in the spare bedroom closet when he became a little too distracting (or in some cases, frightening) for some of my visiting clients.  Some people are just intimidated by his awesomeness.  I get that.  So, out of public view he went for the better part of the last 10 months. When news broke 2 weeks ago that we were having another white elephant gift exchange with our foundation group, I knew what I had to do.  It was a difficult decision, but I new Mattagor deserved better than a spare closet.  And, as you all know, if you love someone/something, you have to set it free.  And so I did.  Saturday night, my buddy Ray was blessed to take Matty home with him.  And for a second, I was grateful... I thought Ray would give Mattagor the life I couldn't.  I thought maybe he'd even bring him back for next year's exchange, and I was even a little hopeful I might somehow be reunited.  But about 5 seconds after Ray acquired Matty, he unceremoniously announced he couldn't wait to give him away as the worst gift in his own family's upcoming gift exchange.  I felt cheated.  And sad.  For Mattagor.  And then I forgot about the whole thing 5 minutes later when we all decided to go get some dessert. What can I say?  The only thing that trumps ceramic friends is chocolate.  And my wife, of course (Hi, honey!). To wrap up this nonsensical post, I enjoyed the last day or two with Mattagor before I gave him away, and here's a couple quick images.  In this first one, I asked him to sit proudly on a wooden pedestal in front of our Christmas tree, and of course, he was a pro.  That's what he does.  All. Day. Long.  BTW, the N's in the background were a little experiment where I cut out a circle of card stock and then cut an "N" out of that circle to put it over my lens when I took this photo.  It's an old school trick, but it gives you a kinda cool result when the out-of-focus lights in the background take on the shape of the cut-out.

Don't let this next image fool you... Mia & Matty weren't exactly best buds.  I can only deduce from Mia's incessant barking at Matty that she either 1) felt threatened by him, or 2) couldn't understand why Mattogor wouldn't talk back to her.  With the help of a little treat, I did get them both to sit still for one photo, though.

And just for fun, here's two more images of the tree... one with an 'N' cut-out over my lens...

... and another with a star cut-out over my lens.