Spirit of the season

God Jul!
Originally uploaded by gwilmore.

The Christmas season seems to get underway earlier and earlier every year, although I normally don't start thinking seriously about it until after Thanksgiving. This year I am making an exception, at least to the extent of posting this and wishing everyone a happy holiday season -- and at the risk of being Politically Incorrect, a Merry Christmas as well. I took this photo last night while visiting the IKEA store in Tempe with my wife, and it is getting some good feedback on Flickr.

It occurs to me that this will be my first Christmas as a blogger, as well as my first as a serious digital photographer, so this seems a fitting way for me to start the season.

As an aside, there is a bit of good news to share with everyone, and this is probably as good a place as any to do it. Many of you know that our son Colin became involved with drugs after we moved to Arizona, and that he has been living with relatives in Utah for the past year and a half. This has been very hard on everyone concerned, and I believe I can speak for Sheila in saying that it is the worst thing I have ever had to go through. Colin has made very good progress, however, and he will be coming home permanently in a couple of weeks. We had resigned ourselves to leaving him up there until graduation, but through no fault of his, a series of circumstances has made it impossible for us or the other people involved to continue that arrangement. Although Colin is not completely out of the woods yet, I am thrilled to have him back so that we can begin to function once again as a normal family. Besides, he, too, has been bitten by the photography bug -- largely because I infected him with it myself -- and this will now be something he and I can get involved in together.

So come rejoice with me! This may end up being the best Christmas gift Sheila and I have ever received. (Incidentally, I spoke with Colin a short while ago, and he is taking all of this quite well, so I am cautiously optimistic that he will do much better in Arizona the second time around.)