When I moved to Boston, the most northerly place I’ve lived, winter hit me like a hammer. Massachusetts can get colder than a psychopath’s heart, but I could handle that. It wasn’t the cold that got me down; it was the darkness.
Living up north, I understood why so many winter holidays focus on light. Long before the first Christmas, Nordic pagans lit bonfires at the winter solstice. Hanukkah and the Hindu Diwali are both “festivals of light.” Kwanzaa is all about candles. Lighting winter’s darkness can raise our spirits no end.
But this can go too far. Electricity has allowed [...]