Happy Winter
Today, December 1 is the first day of winter by any reasonable definition. More on that, shortly. But first, let's embrace it. It is not my favorite season but variety is the spice of life and having variable seasons is really nice. Each of them has things to enjoy.
I realize that we are taught in school that the seasons change on the solstices and equinoxes so we need to wait until the shortest day of the year to declare it to be "winter", but this is not logical. This puts the second-shortest day and one of the coldest (Dec. 20) in the Fall.
Winter's defining attributes are cold and dark. If you want to segment the year by light and temperature, a division that changes on the months (so, Winter is Dec-Feb, Spring March-May, Summer June-August, Fall September to November in the Northern Hemisphere) works better than the conventional one. Picking Lincoln, NE, roughly in the middle of the country, as representative, December 1 has 9.5 hours of daylight and an average temperature of 33.3ºF. March 1st's 11.3 hours and 34.7 ºF. December 1 is clearly more wintery. As the months progress, the case that early December, not March, should be in the winter gets even stronger as December days get even shorter and colder while March is longer and warmer.
"Researching" this column (I spent perhaps 30 minutes) I discovered that meteorologists are already on board – at least some designating Dec-Feb "meteorological winter". But astronomically (day length) the case is even clearer. Normally, I'd expect to be on the side of astronomers but 'a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds'.[^1]
We shouldn't overturn tradition willy-nilly, but that doesn't mean we never should. Seasonal designations as the meteorologist above states with Winter starting Dec. 1, Spring March 1, etc. just makes more sense. And besides, we haven't always done things this way. The summer solstice has long been Midsummer – only pedants declare it to be the first day of summer.
[^1]: It is essential to include "foolish" when quoting that. [^2]
[^2]: Someday, I'll figure out how to do footnotes in Ghost.