(SOUTHERN COLORADO) — With the holidays quickly approaching, it can be easy to forget that the seasons are rapidly changing too. We are already in Meteorological Winter, which takes place from Dec. 1 through Feb. 28. Meteorological Winter uses the calendar for seasonal organization, whereas Astronomical Winter uses the position of the sun. Back in March of this year, most of Earth was receiving just about the same amount of sunlight across the globe. This is because the most direct sunrays were hitting Earth directly above the equator. This allowed for everyone to see roughly 12 hours of daylight on the first day of Spring. It also allowed for 12 hours of nighttime which is where the phrase 'equal day and equal night' comes from in conjunction with the Equinox. During summer, the distribution of sunlight becomes uneven again. Due to the tilt of the Earth, the northern hemisphere receives a larger share of sunlight and thus the days are longer. The Arctic Circle gets an entire 24 hours of sunlight from the middle of April through most of August. The town of Longyearbyen, one of the furthest northern cities on the planet experiences this phenomenon every year. From the end of October, and through much of February, the reverse occurs in Longyearbyen: the sun is down the entire day. In Colorado Springs, the Winter Solstice brings us the shortest day of the year. On Dec. 21, the region gets nine hours and 26 minutes of daylight. The longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice, will feature 14 hours and 53 minutes of daylight. This will occur on June 20 of next year. The sun will also set around 8:30 p.m. during this time.