Happy Holiday! Let the light increase :)

Not here yet. We have to wait another 9 hours for sunrise. But best wishes when it gets here.

I really dislike winter solstice. But, tomorrow I start my countdown to June 21st - my favorite day of the year!

After tomorrow, day length begins to increase in seconds. See daylength differential (highlighted), along with sun altitude, albeit slowly at first (at least in my location) YMMV. :-)

It is not that bad here, we get a lot of winter sun, sun is at a low angle, and my house faces due south, there are no leaves on the deciduous shrubs in the front of the house, I actually get the most sun of they whole year, NOW.

We too get the most sun inside our house (south facing), this time of year. On a sunny day, the furnace hardly runs even when below freezing outside. Really helps with the heating bill. :-)

Sounds like you guys are finally getting some moisture out your way?

Happy solstice!

Well, the sun has risen here .... in theory. But we can't see it. We have sheeting rain and a howling gale. But it's 52° f so not too bad.

Sunshine, blue skies, and a fresh blanket of snow here, temp 18F. View of the neighbor's catalpa this morning looking SW:

Thanks, arbordave, classic old catalpa. I see a few of them traveling north in PA when going to Bedford, PA. In rural areas, if you see one, there's usually several or more nearby.

It's actually the summer solstice for some of us!

And I'm reminded of something that's always puzzled me. Why can't the seasons (winter, summer etc) be capitalised, like the months and days of the week are? Surely they are equally deserving?

Seasons used to be capitalized in standard English punctuation, but this practice seems less common these days. Rules regarding capitalization are very language specific German capitalizes all nouns, while capitalization less frequently than in English, not sure if you see regional differences for English, but I seldom see the seasons capitalized in standard, American English. Personally, I used to capitalize them but stopeed after I felt it carbon-dated me.

P.S., "It's actually the summer solstice for some of us!"

So, happy SUMMER solstice to you!

Gorgeous sunny day, even set some plants out on the south facing veranda, okay these are shrub cuttings that are ripening off prior to their winters rest. We generally receive heaps of winter sun that even most indoor pants continue to push at least some mid winter growth, thus I continue to fertilize them year round. I designed my home to be flooded with copious winter sunshine, a dark interior puts me in about the same dreary mood!

yesterday (21st) it was 24deg.,,first 3in. of snow the day before

Bleccch

I will second a love for the sunshine! While cold here yesterday, the sun was fantastic, and although warmer weather and rain are on the way for later in the week I'm not thrilled about the cloudy weather that joins it. Glad to see a snowdrop! Between that and the concept of lengthening days it feels good to round the corner.

I am hoping our 9 F. last night was the minimum for the year. Yes, very sunny and bright all day long. And yet, Camellias were flirting with blooming two days ago.