If the North Pole were your head and the South Pole your feet, today your head would be too cold and your feet too warm.   That's a metaphor for the axial tilt of the earth on this day, with all of us north of the equator experiencing our shortest winter day and everyone south the longest summer day.

On this day you will have your longest noon shadow of the year. Assuming any sun comes out at all today.  After today daylight in our hemisphere increases faster the farther north you are.

For as long as all our ancestors before us, people have marked the longest night, and the days around it, in some way. Although carried out differently over time and across tribes and cultures, these rituals, gatherings, celebrations, festivals or holidays are common to people everywhere.  

Lots of us leave for work in the dark and return home in the dark and that's how the solstice is noticed.   Whatever you observe about the long dark of the day today, it's nice to think that this is the beginning of brighter and brighter days ahead.  And just the way most things are, it's a little at a time.

If you are interested in reading more about the winter solstice, click here.