These are the darkest days of the year, with the sun not rising until after 7 a.m. and setting by 4:30 p.m., giving us just over 9 hours of sunlight a day. That's on days when the sun manages to break through the clouds, with rain and fog making the days even darker. It means that it's dark when we get up, at least the non-teenaged, non-students-on- Christmas break ones, and dark when we get home. The dog hasn't had a walk in daylight in what seems like weeks. It's dark enough that even Teresa sleeps later, waking to dim light and asking if it's still night time. It stands to reason, then, that this is the time of year when people celebrate light. Generations ago, it was important enough that people lit Christmas trees with actual candles, fire hazard notwithstanding. Now we have electric lights that we untangle and check and fix bulbs on and untangle again, because it's not Christmas without the lights. There are illuminated snowmen and candles and penguins and even light-up nativity scenes. We have lights on the tree, of course, and lights on the bushes outside and on the porch. There are lights around the dining room windows, and Teresa has asked if she could have some lights strung in her room while she sleeps. If the early darkness has one advantage, it's that it shows off the lights to their best advantage. What would be the point of Christmas lights in June, when the sun doesn't set until 8:30 p.m. and the twilight doesn't fade until after 9? Having it dark before dinner time just gives us more hours to enjoy them. Spending so much time in the dark — literally — reminds us of how much in the dark we can be metaphorically as well. How much time do we spend blundering blindly through our lives, missing things we should notice and running headlong into things we should avoid? Not intending any harm, but knocking things over by mistake anyway? Being frightened of the things we cannot see and do not understand? If Jesus is the Light of the World, we surely need him. When the dusk falls, we turn on the lights. We cast the shadows out of the corners, and we might see some dust bunnies that we need to deal with that we could ignore in the dark. At the same time, we remember that we are people of the light, called to hold that light high and spread it as far as we can. So this Christmas season, I'm trying to welcome the light, both the fairy lights on the tree and in the windows, and the Light of the World.