The Christmas tree consolidates my most and least favorite things about Christmas into one not-so-tidy package: the light-hearted fun of decorating the tree, and the supreme annoyance of cleaning it up later. This year I'm pondering a plastic tree, just because I don't want to have to scrape pine needles out of my brand-new carpet. However, an easier way to have my way and eat it too (have my tree and keep it, too?) is to just make a virtual tree in Flash. Not only can I have fun decorating and re-decorating it in a million different ways, there's no mess to clean up when I'm done!

The busiest shopping season of the year has descended on us, complete with ads touting gifts for mom, dad, grandma, sister, brother, son, daughter, and the neighbor's dog (who could probably give you the best gift of all this holiday season and stop yapping at 3 in the morning). What you don't see, however, are ads telling you just what to get for that animation enthusiast in your life (and aren't we supposed to be your top priority, anyway?). Never fear, for Animation@About.com has come to the rescue with not one, but two lists that should help you in your holiday shopping extravaganza.

• From Gouache to Gadgets: Shopping for the Animator on Your Holiday Gift List
• 10 Essential Animation Supplies

Recently we've had a rash of people replying to an extremely old blog post linking to a tutorial for creating text effects in Flash MX and lower, pointing out that the method is outdated. Since the tutorial's over 2 years old, I figured it was time to create a new one addressing the new, much easier ways to create text effects in Flash CS3 and higher. The old tutorial's still there for those who still use MX, but for those who've upgraded and moved on, check out the new tutorial on creating text drops shadows in Flash CS3.

The lesson on falling snow in Flash doesn't have to remain confined to the space alotted by an embedded Flash video. You can actually combine wMode with the Flash falling snow script to create background transparency for a Flash movie layered on top of your existing content, so you can make it snow on your text, your images, and everything else. As the song says - let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

This year I moved to Chicago - and for the first time in ten years, I got to see snow falling from the sky and landing on my lawn, my car, and my disgusted and snow-jaded partner while trudging up the steps to our apartment. While my partner didn't share my childish delight, it's easy to share the love by making it snow all across the internet with a simple little script in Flash.

One of my favorite series of lessons to roll out with the advent of winter is the Flash Snowman set - because these lessons not only let you make a fun holiday game, but also teach many crucial Flash basics and animation principles such as gravity, squash, and stretch. With simple movie clips and drag and drop scripts, you can create an animated snowman that you can dress up and customize in any way that you want.

Lessons:

• Flash Animation 14: Gravity, Squash, and Stretch
• Flash Animation 15: Starting and Stopping Sound Effects
• Flash Animation 16: Adding Sound to Buttons
• Flash Animation 17: Controlling Movie Clips With Buttons and ActionScripting
• Flash Animation 18: Controlling Movie Clips II
• Flash Animation 19: Drag and Drop ActionScripting Commands

Sometimes designing websites in Flash can be a double-edged sword; while using Flash opens up a wealth of design and interactivity possibilities that can't be found anywhere else, it also creates limitations on using certain types of code from within Flash. This is doubly true of the ever-popular Google Adsense, which in a standard coded page can be included as easily as copy-pasting a block of text into the appropriate place. In Flash, it's not quite so easy...but here's a tip on how to get around it.

Suzie asks:

"I want to use an iframe to load content into Flash so I can just update the HTML page without having to republish the SWF every time I change a few words. So far I can't get it to work. Is that possible?"

Iframes, as a rule, are considered a bad design idea overall - although when borderless, they do have their uses for seamless integration of dynamic content into a page. Where Flash is concerned, though, iframes just don't work; the tag isn't one of those supported within Flash. However, there are ways around that - including loading information from a text file and using dynamic text fields to display it. This tutorial shows how that can be done by assigning your text-based content to a variable loaded from a .txt file, which can easily be edited to change the value of the variable and adjust your text content.

Just a reminder: the Animation Showcase is still open and accepting user submissions. If you're looking for a place to show off your work, gain a little more exposure, and possibly achieve a little recognition on the wide-open web, this is a great place to start. As long as your animation meets the criteria, you're eligible for display in the showcase.

Reader Beth writes in with the following question:

"I had a heck of a time adapting to ActionScript 3.0 after using 2.0 for a loooong time. Now Flash CS4 is out, and I don't know if I even want to try it if it means more changes. What am I looking at now? AS 4.0, or is it still 3.0?"

Beth, you'll be relieved to know that a new version of AS hasn't rolled out with CS4. CS4 keeps AS 3.0's syntax and functionality, but expands on it with a few enhancements. Some have criticized the AS interface in CS4, but in the end it comes down to personal preferences as far as GUI functionality. If you could adapt to CS3, you should be just fine wading into the waters of CS4.