Rick's b.log - 2021/12/21
It is the 21st of November 2024 You are 3.12.123.41, pleased to meet you!

Advent 2021 day 21

Winter Solstice (Yule)

Actually, it's nothing to do with the sun. It's our planet that is wonky. We've passed the point of the northern hemisphere being farthest from the sun, and we're coming around the other side.

Either way, little by little the days will start to lengthen. For me, here, the day was about eight and a quarter hours long (with a vastly longer night). That's about half the amount of daylight as in the summer.
Further north, even less sunlight. Until you get to the top of the world where it's safe for vampires to roam as there isn't any sunlight at all - perhaps the most extreme being Tromsø in Norway where there sun just doesn't rise at all between November and January. It's not totally black like 30 days of night, not even in Barrow, Alaska (where the film was set). The sun doesn't rise, is the important thing here. There's still twilight. It just doesn't get much brighter than that.

While the coldest is yet to come (it's usually coldest around February, just like it's often hottest in August), soon I'll be driving to work with the sun in my eyes, and not in darkness. And soon I'll be able to enjoy some sunshine when I come home after work, not lamenting that it had set just as I was coming over the top of the hill to come home.

Your comments:

Rick, 21st December 2021, 19:59

That's, clearly, a tee shirt you only get to wear once a year. 😄    It's really cold (freezing, supposed to drop to -4 in the night) and it took "a rather long time" to hook up the lights. So I hope you enjoyed it!

David Boddie, 22nd December 2021, 00:05

Totally worth it!