Welcome!

Thanksgiving is past.  Canadians wearing multiple layers of ever so warm clothing are already installing themselves and their ever so fragrant evergreens:

• Douglas-fir Pseudotsuga menziesii
• Balsam Fir Abies balsamea
• Fraser Fir Abies fraseri
• Grand Fir Abies grandis
• Red Fir Abies magnifica
• White Fir Abies concolor
• Scots Pine Pinus sylvestris
• Stone Pine Pinus pinea (as small table-top trees)
• Norfolk Island Pine Araucaria heterophylla

(with thanks to Wikipedia)

on street corners throughout our city.  And soon enough this

will look like this:

then this:

and, if we’re truly lucky, eventually this:

Bobbie grew up with Christmas as the central holiday for her family.  With the Goldberg clan it was always Thanksgiving.  Now, as our lives have coalesced, Thanksgiving-to-Christmas for us has evolved into one wonderfully long Family Holiday.

The folks in the collage above are our family at this moment, the people we hold closer, the ones we’ve allowed to know us beyond the scope of just acquaintances. They are the  harvest of our lives.

Here’s hoping that this time for you is one of  gratitude for the ongoing harvest of your life and of awe at the movement of the seasons into the promise of new life to come.