Today is my favorite non-holiday day of the year because it is the winter solstice and, of course, the shortest day of the year. To make this day even better, we had the Christmas star in the sky when Jupiter and Saturn were at their closest in over 400 years, and 800 years since this close proximity was viewable in the night sky. I gazed up into the sky and marveled at the vast distances that are simply unfathomable to my mind. These are merely distances between objects within our solar system–itself an almost infinitesimally small portion of the universe. It’s wonderful to witness celestial events like this because it reminds us how our tiny selves are a part of this gargantuan universe.