The Beautiful Convergence

 If you live in the northern hemisphere, there's a good chance that December is the darkest month of the year. This is because the Earth has reached that portion of its orbit where it is actually leaning away from the sun.

It can be hard to fathom in a universe measured in light years, but this seemingly minor event is what plunges the northern hemisphere into what we call 'winter'. (In the interests of keeping this post family-friendly, we will ignore the fact this word is frequently preceded by colorful adjectives, such as 'fucking'.)

Oops.

This change means that where I live, daylight shrinks from a high of fifteen hours and thirteen minutes to just nine hours and seven minutes—a decrease of forty percent. And these kind of profound changes don't come without consequences.

With a diminished heat source comes less heat, or if you're a glass-half-full kind of guy or gal, more cooling. Naturally, this cooling has its own consequences, like the formation of snow and ice.

Yeah, it's the northern hemisphere's annual win-win.

So. It's dark. And cold. And very likely windy. If you're really lucky, it's snowing, too. What do we do? How do we counteract this? Is there even an answer?

Yep.

Christmas.

Say what you want about this holiday, which too-often devolves into a crass orgy of materialism. We celebrate it with lights. Lots of lights.

We put lights on trees and on houses and on hedges and in some instances, even cars. In a truly beautiful convergence, in the observance of this holiday we fight the dark with light. We ward off the chill of another winter with the warmth of light.

No matter my age or state of mental health, I am always made glad by these displays of light so many of us bother with. In a hard and exhausting and frequently bitter world, those tiny bulbs sand off the edges and let us imagine—however temporarily—a world that is a good and peaceful place.

And I can't imagine anyone needing that more than we do in this year.

Be they displays visible from space or a single strand adorning a forlorn bush, my thanks to all who festooned their homes with light. You light up my life.