This morning, Dec. 26 is Boxing Day (in Canada). The presents are opened, the turkey consumed, and I was having an early morning coffee by the fire with my mom. Suddenly, she screamed. There was a spider crawling on her neck! She flicked it off, and I captured it, seeing that it was an immature giant house spider, Eratigena atrica. It was a Christmas miracle!

Christmas spider in a field of moles.

Anyway, after some boring shots on my skin, I decided to take advantage of the beautiful Christmas tree lights for a nice background. These LED Christmas tree lights are not what they used to be! I had to drag the shutter at 1/30th to get even a modicum of background illumination.

Anyway, that is my Christmas spider story from this morning. Now I am heading out to see if I can get some more otter or bird shots at sunrise. Happy Holidays!

Christmas spider posing in front of the tree.

This Christmas spider is pretty dusty, so I will not show a real close-up.