Winter solstice

In Fiesole it was a low-angled sun-soaked day once the earth rotated enough to reveal the sun. By four thirty it was gone again over the hills to the west.

At the winter solstice the northern hemisphere of the earth, canted over at a permanent angle, is at both its maximum distance and maximum angle off the perpendicular from the sun as it makes it annual orbit around our friendly star.

From memory it is not so much the additional distance from the sun but the obliqueness of angle of the sun's rays that causes our winter - which we experience as shorter days and the 'lowness' of the sun in the sky.