I sit typing in San Antonio, Texas, still in the Central Time Zone of the United States, and wait for the New Year and all I can do is think of past. An hour earlier an aunt from Pakistan calls, recounting to me how they still kept the Hogmanay feast, in a little Scottish mission school in Pakistan, and I am taken back. We decide to watch the Karate Kid tonight as a family. And I am taken back. My sister-in-law remembers wanting to be Ali; I wanted to be Daniel. Johnny Lawrence still sweeps the leg and Daniel still arches in the Crane position and delivers the decisive blow. My little, 8-year-old niece spontaneously bursts into applause, and the magic still works. And that I suppose is an apt enough image of the transfer between years, the old transferred to the new.

But you are not reading this post to hear about my New Year’s musings. The results for A Christmas Carol Photo Contest are in and here you go. 

Now, outside the firecrackers are going off, echoing crackers in our kitchen a few minutes ago, and it is a festive start to 2010, indeed. May each of you be richly blessed by God in the coming year and have peace and hope.