“Because of God’s tender mercy,
    the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
    and to guide us to the path of peace.” – Luke 1:78-79

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope – after a week featuring everything from art to education to our sudden immersion in the season of Advent – that you enjoy this collection of photographs in today’s “Photo-Friday” post.

I want to begin – I have to begin – with this photograph of my dad from Christmas 1952 in my hometown of Folkestone. Dad is just 24 years old, he and my mum have been married a little over six months, and they are the new and enthusiastic young couple who recently joined Folkestone Baptist Church having moved to town to open a new business.

Dad is playing the angel Gabriel in the Christmas pageant. I am not slated to show up until 1956, more than another three years.

Another Tradition:

Next, please enjoy the latest addition to our longstanding tradition of gifting Tim and Kelly Black with tacky, grotesque, outrageous, borderline offensive ornaments for their “can we please lose this in the next move” tree.

If you want to know the origin story to this relentless exercise in bad taste, read my “Jesus Came for all the Ornaments” post – or get a copy of my Christmas book (well worth the read), In My Heart I Carry A Star: stories for Advent (click here).

Okay, enough with that foolishness. Next up evidence (top of the page) that millions of leaves are most certainly still falling at our home in Wake Forest, followed by a couple of photos from the always progressing renovation/restoration at 408 Saint Patrick Street (see gallery, below) as well as some seriously amazing bath shoes from the Ottoman Empire exhibit earlier in the week.

Finally, and absolutely worthy of its own paragraph, this photograph of our only granddaughter, Beks.

Now you would think this image came from Alaska, or a skiing trip, or an adventure in the Arctic, photographing Polar Bears, or maybe while tobogganing in the Swiss Alps… But no, this is Beks in Orlando just a couple of days ago. Apparently there was a “cold snap” and she had to go to school in temperatures approaching, gasp, somewhere in the vicinity of 55-degrees!

So that’s it, today’s “Photo Friday” collection for December 6.

Have an amazing weekend, friends. And I pray that I will see you in church. Hope, peace, love and joy – DEREK