Happy winter solstice, everyone! This day is particularly important to us far northerners, it marks the point where we finally turn the page on darkness to more sun and light!
When we lived in the lower 48, winter solstice was just kind of a thing that happened. But, as far northerners, it’s a point in winter that we greatly anticipate. Our dark and cold winters can really take their toll, so celebrating the point where it turns around is vitally important to us!
Where we are at, we get a mere 3 hours and 42 minutes of sunlight at winter solstice. While that isn’t a lot, we would say it’s some of the most beautiful light you could conceive. I like to describe it as a simultaneous sunrise and sunset, with no mid day sun in between. In many ways, it’s a quality over quantity thing.
We’re often asked how we deal with the cold and dark. A lot of it is perspective. We think much more in terms of the entire year, as opposed weeks or months. Our summer months keep us extremely busy and barely able to keep up. Whereas our winter months are periods of rest and recharge. Celebrating winter solstice is also a big part of it.
One of the things we like about gardening is how it provides us with a precise path to our summer months. In a little over two months, we’ll be kicking off our seedlings and 2026 garden. From there, week by week, we’ll see more and more light, warmth and reprieve from the claws of winter. It’s like a clock that we can look at, giving us certainty of what the future will bring.
We’ve been battling weeks of extreme cold lately and there’s still no end in sight. Coming days may also bring us down to 40 below zero, the remarkable temperature where both Celsius and Fahrenheit completely agree. But, we’ll take it in stride as every day from here on out will bring us more light, without fail.
We hope you all have a great winter solstice and are getting settled for the upcoming holiday season!
