 Well you knew at some point Santa was going to have to be part of the mix here and I was trying to decide what to do. I painted this fireplace in the background and then realized Santa was going to have to be in shadow with just a little bit of highlight on the back side and I started by painting all the white stuff with the shadow color and then it had to go into the face more and as I got deeper and more contrasty with the fire I was able to start building it more contrast in the tree behind them as well as in Santa's detail and the face, etc. I think it started working as I got into that final detail but were you as skeptical as I was along the way?