I asked my friend, Kathye, who is a cool, quirky gal and a professional writer to write a guest post for the winter solstice.

The other morning, I woke up when it was still dark out. I went downstairs, flipped on the light in the living room, and suddenly it seemed like Christmas morning. We had just decorated for the season the day before, and the lights on the window and the tree were plugged into the same outlet as the lamp in the living room. It made me smile, maybe even glow a little.

It also got me thinking. The tradition of Christmas lights started with putting candles on Christmas trees in Germany – a nation that experiences cold, dark winters. It is our nature as human beings to try to bring light to the darkness.

What we sometimes forget is that it’s the darkness that makes us seek ways to light it. If the days weren’t so short, if the winter wasn’t so long, we might not feel the need to celebrate in the middle of it. It’s hard to stand defiant against the darkness when the darkness is unremarkable.

The same is just as true in a metaphorical sense. Sometimes it’s in hardship that we find our strength, our courage, our hope… our humanity in all its beauty. There are countless examples throughout history of people pulling together, standing up in the face of evil or hardship – and seeing the humanity in the enemy, as in the case of the Christmas Truce in the first World War.

When darkness looms, we have a choice. We can let it engulf us, bring us down, make us gloomy. Or we can chase it back and turn on the lights.

On the shortest day of the year when the night is so long, don’t curse the darkness – light a candle. Look at it as an opportunity to shine.

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Kathye has a blog too!  Check it out at http://kathyesguideto.wordpress.com/