So, today is December 25 – the time around which the ancient Romans celebrated the pagan festivals of the Saturnalia and Sol Invictus, which the Christians basically took over and turned into Christmas in the fourth century. Whatever it may be, it gave me the chance to sleep late today, and in my book, that itself is reason enough to celebrate. I hope that most of you reading this out there in bloggie land got to sleep late, too, and whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, the Saturnalia or even Festivus, I hope that you have had a most enjoyable day.

I’ve mentioned before that this is the busiest time of the year at my office and that I've been working overtime lately, so I even volunteered to go in today as I had no specific plans here at home. I was told that nobody else was going in and that I should not do so, leaving me to take care of some things here. I’d thought of filing some more negatives from my trip to Laos earlier this year, but instead I decided to think forward and looked up some hotels online for one of the places I’m thinking of visiting next year.

Then I copied some music from some of my CDs and put together another compilation disc of opera favorites – I’m listening to the results now as I write this – and went through some of the mail that piled up over the past week.

Despite not filing any negatives today, I did find the time to scan a few negatives from my trip to Scotland in 2004, where I photographed the English model Alison up in the Highlands. They’re here for you to see now, so enjoy.

Enjoy the rest of the holiday season, too, everybody.