Happy Winter Solstice

It's Winter Solstice... the longest night of the year, but that's not why I'm happy about it.  Night and I haven't been good friends since my college days, and I don't like the long, dark nights of late fall and winter one bit.  Winter Solstice is, for me, the turning of the year - the point when the sun begins its slow return to primacy.  Every turn of the earth from today forward, darkness will ease a bit and light will creep forward.  It's not the end of winter - not by a long shot, and some feel that the solstice is just the beginning of winter - but I'll take whatever I can get in the day-lengthening department.  Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real thing, and even though I don't have it, I do find my mood alters in the post-Christmas season as winter takes hold.  Once the holiday lights come down and the tree is gone, it's as if I've got one less bulwark against the Long Dark.  So I do pay attention to the Winter Solstice, and mark it with pleasure, because it's a promise to me that the sun will return.  Happy Solstice, everyone.