On Thursday the holiday-themed Google doodle you see right now was unveiled to the masses.  This year was rife with all kinds of Google doodles (from Pac-Man to UFOs), but this one’s being touted as the “most ambitious one yet.” Chief Google doodler Michael Lopez (yes, that is a real position) headed this year’s festive doodle with a team of four other artists.  It took them over 250 hours to complete the 17 interactive portraits of holiday scenes. Originally, the plan was to unveil the doodle in stages over three days, but at the last minute Google execs decided that it’d be best to push out the doodle in one piece and keep it up for two-and-a-half days.  Lopez and his team rushed to make it happen, and they managed to put it up just in time around 9am Thursday morning.  The majority of the holiday scenes focus on food, dance, architecture, and textile from all around the world. Google estimates that it has created over 900 doodles since 1998, with approximately 270 of them running in 2010.  Of all the doodles thus far, this one seems to be the one that most diverges from spelling out the search engine’s name.  Can you find where it says “Google” there?  It’s very subtle.  Anyway, can’t wait to see what Lopez has in store for us next year!

[Via WSJ]