It's the holiday Google doodle that has replaced Google's corporate logo on its homepage today. In fact, the holiday Google doodle will be in place till the evening of December 25, yes, that's Christmas Day. Although less flashy in comparison to Google's bouncing balls doodle on the eve of Google Instant search's release, the current holiday Google doodle has taken a considerable amount of time to achieve.
The holiday Google doodle consists of 17 framed illustrations that depicts scenes from around the world -- kinda like a portrait collection on the wall of an art lover. If you hover your mouse on any of the tiled paintings, they maximize to reveal the full image and clicking on them takes you to Google's search landing page explaining the scene's significance.
Google's chief doodler, Michael Lopez, and his team of five artists took a total of 250 hours spanning over five months to create the holiday Google doodle. Discussions of the holiday Google doodle started as far back as July, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Google doodles have become elaborate and interactive in recent months -- be it the mystery HTML5 Google doodle, or the interactive Buckyball doodle, or PacMan's 30th anniversary game doodle, or more recently John Lennon's 70th birthday video doodle, Google doodles are embracing new Web technologies to become more fun and innovative.