The holidays are upon us and 2016 is nipping at our heels. The only decision harder than what gift to get your grandmother is what GIF to attach to inter-office emails and Slack threads. We've gathered some of the most festive GIF artists on the net for a series called 12 Days of GIFmas. We'll shine a red and green spotlight on the creative process behind these shareable bites of holiday cheer.Photographer and animator John McLaughlin brings us an irony-charged Christmas recipe in his latest GIF, which tackles the very un-white Christmas facing his home base of New York City.He preserves vignettes of a remixed reality, from adding fluffy floating aliens to NY Fashion Week photos to rendering his memories in surreal pastel-colored pencil drawings. We chatted with McLaughlin about making the tongue-in-cheek take on Christmas in NYC and his plans for the holidays.Can you briefly explain the idea behind the GIF?It's been super unusually warm here in NYC this December and I've been seeing so many things in the news lately on climate change. Then just thinking about the juxtaposition of a traditional North Eastern U.S. holiday and climate change, I came up with this.Run me through the process of creating the GIFs. What tools/techniques did you use?I sketch my idea on paper then refined the sketch and animated in Photoshop. And for this GIF I added some slight motion tweaks in After Effects.What kind of stuff do you have planned for 2016?Just keep creating as much art as I can and travel as often as I get the chance. I'm hoping 2016 is the year I finally make it to Columbus, Ohio. I've heard so many great things about that town.How are you celebrating the holidays? I'm taking a short vacation and going to Nashville, TN with my girlfriend. Then we'll spend some time with our families in New York and New Jersey.To learn more about John McLaughlin, click here.Related:GIF of the Year: Obama on a Skateboard'As Long As Possible' GIF Set to Last 1,000 YearsGIF Six-Pack: It's Motherf*cking Star Wars Season
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