Happy Winter!

PC110202. "holiday" lights on the bandstand fountain, Lake Merritt.

Since we are having some seriously cold winter weather here in "sunny" California, I thought I'd post this festive photo and a little note about the coming shortest day of the year here in the northern hemisphere. I like this Wikipedia entry for the Winter Solstice:

The winter solstice occurs at the instant when the Sun's position in the sky is at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane from the observer.

This year it happens at 4:04 A.M. (PST) on December 21st, 2008. In the United States this is the official start of Winter. So Happy Winter!