It's all over bar the shouting

My mum used to use the expression in my title and I'm not sure if it's just a British thing so if I've confused anyone, I apologise now!  Basically, I guess Christmas isn't officially over until 12th Night but it feels like it is well and truly over.
Thanks to JYC I have had a bit of an experiment with Paul's new camera (which I stupidly believed to be a joint ownership when we bought it!) and have come up with these:

A black and white picture that was shot in black and white setting on the camera rather than editing in software once uploaded to computer.  It's not the best picture but it's one that looks better in black and white than colour.  
The dice are kind of appropriate to Christmas as it's the time of year when games HAVE to be played.  We always keep 'Shut the Box' on the coffee table but have to keep the dice out of the way as a small furry creature would find them very tasty.  It's funny how people pick up this game and just get addicted to it.  I'll just try one more time, I'll win next time.  I'll just keep playing until I manage to close all the numbers.  You know the scene.  Another old favourite of ours is Lingo.  It's a word tile game where you make words but people can steal your letters to make new words.  It brings out the competitive streak in us all and is so much fun.  I never win, I build up lots of little words then suddenly hands are shooting out from all around the table grabbing my words, I look down and I only have one three letter word left!

Another picture I took was one capturing bokeh.

I've never managed to do this before and I love it!  Whether or not I could do it again remains to be seen ... I used the new tripod and set it up looking at the Christmas tree lights.  Set the ISO really high so I didn't need a flash, used a small flower punch to cut a shape in a piece of cardstock, positioned it in front of the lens and voilà!  Bokeh!  I was stupidly excited to get this effect.

I would love to share some photos of our Christmas Day as we spent it with several cute children but I don't like to put pictures of other people's children on the blog for obvious reasons.  We spent the day at my nephew's house, there were 14 of us including  his son aged 9, daughter aged 6, my niece's daughter aged 2 and son aged 6 months.  They kept us all entertained and really made it a special day.  The highlight for me was when we dressed my brother in law up in a Santa costume and had him knock on the front door with a few extra presents he'd found at the bottom of his sack.  How to silence four excited children in one fell swoop!  But the cutest thing ever was when little Sophie looked up at Santa (her grandad in disguise) and said 'Thank you for my present Farmer Christmas'!  So sweet.  He will always be known as 'Farmer' from now on.
I need to go to the shops today, there are not enough leftovers from Boxing Day left to make a decent meal.  Yes, it really is all over bar the shouting!