Christmas Cake Diva

This year I decided to pass on baking all the cookies, pass on the pie since I'm not a huge pie fan (though I will eat it if it's put in front of me:), and bake a Christmas Cake! I will say this, I can bake--I don't think it's too difficult to do if you follow the directions and use quality ingredients, have good bakeware, and know your oven! And I've gotten really good at knowing when something is done to perfection--so generally when I bake, it tastes pretty good. But where I've never done very well was cake decorating--I CAN'T FROST A CAKE! Actually I LOVE looking at beautifully decorated cakes--I even admire them. I've come to love watching a couple of television series that specializes in cakes and (weddings, those are fun to watch too, and usually those involve a cake:) So, I decided to quit being a passive cake admirer and to take action! I decided it's going to be a new hobby of mine to learn to decorate cakes for special occasions (or whenever I have a few hours to do so:) I even purchased a domed cake plate, and semi decent cake pans for the occasions. So, this Christmas I made a Christmas Cake (of course completely from scratch, I haven't used a box mix in many many years)!
Here is my first pretty cake creation, and I thought I did a decent job frosting it (for the first time ever:)--I now have mastered the art of cooling the layers and doing a crumb layer first:

Three layer chocolate fudge cake, with a raspberry glaze between the layers.
Buttercream frosting with a hint of lemon.
Glazed fruit (this took two hours of simmering to accomplish), comprised of fresh orange slices, freshly diced pineapple, dried apricots, dried cherries, and dried cranberries, and toasted walnuts, all reconstituted in a simple syrup to create the glaze.

I'll let you know how it tastes after we cut into it tomorrow:)