the darkest days of the year

[© tweed]

sun up at 7, down at 4.  repeat tomorrow, but make it a bit worse.  I rue the damn day!  Dec 21 it all turns around... share your coping mechanisms here.

[Platypus]

I spend my time in the Southern hemisphere, it makes December better.

[minionofmidas]

7? Lucky sod. Quarter past 8 here (sundown at a quarter past four just like yours though. Seeing as we're on about a half hour's worth of summertime in winter and 90 minutes in summer.)

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Up between 7h30 and 8h, and down between 17h30 and 18h here. I mean, when it begins to be actually clear or dark, not the 'very beginning' of the rise and fall, might be closer from 8 in the morning.

Well, dunno why, this year I have less problem with that...

[Franzl]

Doesn't really bother me all that much.

[memphis]

I prefer a shorter day. While I accept a certain amount of heat and light is a requirement for life, I dislike sunny days. Brightness hurts my eyes and it makes things too hot, even when the temperature is mild.

[© tweed]

I prefer a shorter day. While I accept a certain amount of heat and light is a requirement for life, I dislike sunny days. Brightness hurts my eyes and it makes things too hot, even when the temperature is mild.

back in 07 I claimed the same thing.  I worked as a camp counselor (yes Boss Tweed was responsible for watching 7 and 8 year olds, what a disaster) and had to be outside between 9am and noon.  not fun, with a dark green shirt.

[memphis]

I prefer a shorter day. While I accept a certain amount of heat and light is a requirement for life, I dislike sunny days. Brightness hurts my eyes and it makes things too hot, even when the temperature is mild.

back in 07 I claimed the same thing.  I worked as a camp counselor (yes Boss Tweed was responsible for watching 7 and 8 year olds, what a disaster) and had to be outside between 9am and noon.  not fun, with a dark green shirt.

Come spend a summer in the South and you'll understand better. At this point, it's not even a rational thing. I have an intense psychological dislike for sunny days, based on having grown up in a hot climate. I cannot for the life of me understand why somebody would choose to vacation in the Summer anywhere in the Sunbelt. That Florida gets any visitors except from November through March simply will not compute. My mom has this longstanding fantasy of the whole family taking a Caribbean cruise. I've made it very clear to her that I would only consider going in the Winter.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Sun is up just before 8 here and down not long after 4.  November/December is also the cloudiest time of year, so even if you do manage to enjoy a winter day off of work or school, chances are you won't see the sun.  And add to that the unusual lack of snow this year and it makes everything very dark.  Usually by this time of year it's hard to distinguish ground from sky, save for our savior pines and spruces that provide a little green to offset the harsh sameness of early winter.

That said, I rather like it.  I love the feeling of being inside and cozy with the darkness outside.  It certainly beats bright and sunny and birds chirping just after 5 in June.  I'd just assume the sun come up at 7 or 8 in summer and not set til 3am.

[fezzyfestoon]

I have a family and personal history with pretty severe SAD but have been able to keep my head above water pretty well this year. Don't really know why my approach has been more successful this winter than past (probably the MJ) but I'm hoping it will last or at least that by the time it turns around it won't be too bad. It's looking good so far and the further in we get to the darkness, the more optimistic I am that it won't be so bad.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I have a family and personal history with pretty severe SAD but have been able to keep my head above water pretty well this year. Don't really know why my approach has been more successful this winter than past (probably the MJ) but I'm hoping it will last or at least that by the time it turns around it won't be too bad. It's looking good so far and the further in we get to the darkness, the more optimistic I am that it won't be so bad.

Just move to southern/southeast Alaska where you can pretend you love the constant darkness and the flittering of the temperature around the 32˚F mark with constant precipitation so that it rains, then snows, then rains, then freezes the slush solid with below 0˚F, then rains and snows on top of that and then the wind blows 60mph off the tops of the mountains... just pretend you love it.

Until you get your oil check and can take off to Hawaii for a couple weeks just before you're about to crack and get a few months worth of vitamin D and spam sandwiches and get drunk off of cheap island moonshine.

Then you can head back to Alaska and act like you love the summers, which are invariably cold and cloudy and just rainy enough that it feels like God is spitting on your head.

[Keystone Phil]

The temperature (though we've had random, unseasonably warm days recently) and lack of daylight makes this the worst time of year. How far away is May?

[minionofmidas]

The temperature (though we've had random, unseasonably warm days recently) and lack of daylight makes this the worst time of year. How far away is May?

5 mo...

Oh. It's a rhetorical question. 17 months, in that case.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I hate this... And yet I'm still lucky enough to live in the western part of my time zone. I can't imagine how Poles, Slovaks or Serbs (or even Brits) feel at this period of the year...

[Ban my account ffs!]

The temperature (though we've had random, unseasonably warm days recently) and lack of daylight makes this the worst time of year. How far away is May?

5 mo...

Oh. It's a rhetorical question. 17 months, in that case.

Well, well... haven't we got ourselves a regular Seth MacFarlane in here!

[Joe Biden 2020]

The sun is up just after 7:30 here and down just before 5:30 (tonight 5:20).  The sunrise will peak at about 7:50 in early January and the sunset has already bottomed out at 5:17 and has turned the corner back toward the summer solstice.  Then, the sunrise will bottom out at 6:14 am and the sunset will peak at 8:50 pm.  I generally love more daylight than darkness, but it really doesn't phase me all that much.

What's interesting, and I know this is slightly off subject, is the past two winters have been unquestionably nasty for Oklahoma.  Yet, we are colder this December than we were the past two years.  Thankfully, though, our drought is rapidly improving with on average an inch of rain every 7-10 days since September.  In fact, tonight, tomorrow, and into Tuesday morning, we have a whopper of a storm expected to dump 1-3"of rain for Oklahoma City and 8-10"of snow in Northwest Oklahoma and the Panhandle.