Santa Claus and babies

This is the cutest Santa Claus photo I have ever seen with these three sleeping babies, sent by Anne, from Luxembourg (FB-swap).
(Received in June, 2012)

Anne Geddes became a photographer at age 25. She had always had an interest in babies in general, but the schools she attended did not offer photography classes. She chose babies as her subject because of her love of them. "I had seen the way children and babies were generally being photographed. It just didn't seem realistic to me that people took their children along to photographic studios all dressed in their Sunday best, photographs that didn't really show the personality of the child."

Geddes believes that "emotional content is an image's most important element" and that people are drawn to her work because of its simplicity and personality. She prefers black-and-white photography to color photography. She prefers the black-and-white scheme because she feels that colour distracts from the image and the natural beauty of life.

La passion du chocolate

This "delicious" postcard is also from Anne, Luxembourg, through FB-swap. I ♥ Chocolate!!! :)
(Received in June, 2012)

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC. The majority of the Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Aztecs, who made it into a beverage known as xocolātl, a Nahuatl word meaning "bitter water". The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop the flavor.
After fermentation, the beans are dried, then cleaned, and then roasted, and the shell is removed to produce cacao nibs. The nibs are then ground to cocoa mass, pure chocolate in rough form. Because this cocoa mass usually is liquefied then molded with or without other ingredients, it is called chocolate liquor. The liquor also may be processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Unsweetened baking chocolate (bitter chocolate) contains primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions. Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, combining cocoa solids, cocoa butter or other fat, and sugar. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk but no cocoa solids. ;)

Luxembourg

It's my first postcard from Luxembourg, sent by Anne (FB-swap).
(Received in June, 2012)

Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg), is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the north as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland ("good country") in the south.
Luxembourg has a population of just over half a million people in an area of 2,586 square kilometres (998 sq mi). A representative democracy with a constitutional monarch, it is ruled by a grand duke. It is now the world's only remaining sovereign grand duchy. Its historic and strategic importance dates back to its founding as a Roman era fortress and Frankish count's castle site in the Early Middle Ages. It was an important bastion along the Spanish Road when Spain was the principal European power influencing the whole western hemisphere and beyond in the 16th–17th centuries.
The city of Luxembourg, the largest and capital city, is the seat of several institutions and agencies of the EU.
Luxembourg culture is a mix of Romance Europe and Germanic Europe, borrowing customs from each of the distinct traditions. Luxembourg is a trilingual country: German, French and Luxembourgish are official languages.