Happy solstice! Let there be light.

IT’S ALL ABOUT LIGHT this week, starting with today, December 21. Happy winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and Happy almost-final-day of Hanukkah! Both have to do with winter light and what it means to us all.

With just me and Galley Cat in our cabin on this remote little island in the San Juans, life changes significantly when sunrise doesn’t come until almost 8 in the morning and the sky is inky black before 5.

In mid-summer, 5 o’clock is happy hour on my sun-flooded deck. At this time of year when 5 comes around it means I’d better have made my daily trek to the mail shack already or else have my headlamp charged up.

With barely eight hours of daylight, for me it means less time for outdoor chores, and getting up earlier so I have time to split firewood; pick up fallen branches from the latest storm; go for a walk with Galley Cat.

For the resident feline, it means staying inside after 3 p.m. when dusk starts to descend. Having heard frequent owl hoots in recent months and coming eye-to-eye one late afternoon with a Great Horned Owl peering down from my roof, I keep Galley indoors in peak hunting hours. She’s just small enough that big raptors are a worry.

This December, all over Washington State, the dark days have been even tougher in the face of fierce winds, drenching rains and floods. Mild temperatures in our mountains meant rain fell rather than snow, fueling rampaging rivers. On top of all that, nationwide political chaos continued to test our good nature.

More about our winter daylight: My brother in Santa Fe was surprised when I texted him a photo of a spectacular sunrise I witnessed from our Center Island dock as I awaited a water taxi pickup last weekend during a welcome respite from the storms. He was mystified that the photo was taken at 7:58 a.m., which to him seemed quite late for sunrise. The simple explanation: Center Island is at 48.49 degrees north latitude, while Santa Fe, 1,177 miles to south, is at 35.69 degrees. The hours of daylight have to do with the tilt of the earth in its revolutions around the sun this time of year. In winter the Northern Hemisphere tilts away from the sun, so the sun follows a lower, shorter arc across the sky at northern latitudes and sets much earlier than at lower latitudes.

A quick look at the numbers: On today’s winter solstice, Center Island is milking what it can from the sun with 8 hours and 20 minutes of daylight. Santa Fe is enjoying 9 hours and 40 minutes.

Before we Center Islanders cry in our cocoa, we should consider the plight of neighbors to the north. If I lived in Anchorage (61.2 degrees north), I’d get out in daylight for just 5 hours and 28 minutes today. The watery winter sun didn’t peek over the horizon there until 10:14 this morning. That’s just SAD (which happens to be the apt acronym for Seasonal Affective Disorder).

All this came to mind as I put up a 7-foot Noble fir and festooned it with lights in Nuthatch Cabin this week. Whether or not you celebrate the birth of Christ, decking an evergreen with lights is simple self-defense against the dark of December, my brother and I agreed.

How’d that custom start? A quick Google search says:

Christmas trees originated from ancient pagan winter-solstice celebrations using evergreens to symbolize life, evolving into a German Protestant tradition in the 16th century in which trees were decorated with apples and candles, famously popularized globally by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the 1840s, spreading from German immigrants to America and beyond as a beloved Christmas symbol. 

Meanwhile, let’s not forget Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. When a small group of devout Jews defeated an army of oppressors in the 2nd century BCE, a day’s worth of lighting oil miraculously lasted eight days for the victors. With the lighting of candles for eight nights, the modern holiday celebrates spiritual triumph, the victory of light over darkness, and the endurance of faith.

Tomorrow our days start getting longer. What a relief. In these trying times, we could all use another victory of light over darkness.