The Ninth Day of Christmas

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

9 hours of daylight
8 Christmas carols
7 guns a-shooting
6 Lewis kisses
5 bags of wings!
4 calling phones
3 final tests
2 Praxis scores
And a mid-Atlantic winter snow storm


Today is the Winter Solstice, meaning it is the shortest day of the year. Strictly speaking, we will have 9 hours and 18 minutes of daylight today, from sunrise to sunset, but I decided it was okay to round down to 9.

According, to Wikipedia, "the Winter Solstice occurs exactly when the earth's axial tilt is farthest away from the sun at its maximum of 23° 26'. Though the Winter Solstice lasts an instant in time, the term is also colloquially used like Midwinter to refer to the day on which it occurs. For most people in the high latitudes this is commonly known as the shortest day and the sun's daily maximum position in the sky is the lowest. The seasonal significance of the Winter Solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days. The Winter Solstice is also the shortest day or lowest sun position for people in low latitudes located between the Tropic of Cancer (23°26'N) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23°26'S). Depending on the shift of the calendar, the Winter Solistice occurs some time between December 21 and December 22 each year in the Northern Hemisphere, and between June 20 and June 21 in the Southern Hemisphere."

Today, the Winter Solstice officially occurred at 10:47 am.

This is very good news for me. I was getting steadily more depressed as the days got shorter and shorter. I never made it home before the sun went down. Even Sundays have been stinky because we don't get out of church until 5 when the sun has already started to set.

But now the days will be getting longer and longer, a fact that is ever so pleasing to me. I'm a fan of the sun, even if it is bitterly cold outside, which I'm sure it will be again soon. Brr.