photographs by Valerie Downes, Aaron Jay, and K. Snowden

In spite of the dozens of smells we associate with the season, and the 100 or more Yuletide carols we all recognize because we hear them everywhere, Christmas is still a holiday that's mostly about light and image, a frontal assault on the darkness of late Decembers. In ancient times, when the noon sun sank lower in the sky as each night grew longer than the one before it, people panicked. They feared that this time, if they'd fallen out of favor, the sun would go away forever. So they tried to lure it back with extravagant lights and brightly colored decorations. (Did it ever really have all that much to do with celebrating the life of the ascetic prophet who said, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon"?)

Of course, we've understood the mechanics of the winter solstice for centuries. By the time Americans overcame their puritan objections to Christmas and began to celebrate it, the motion of the planets was grade school stuff. We knew that by every December 25th, the earth would have begun to right itself, and soon we'd have the sun back. Still, if we no longer fear abandonment by the sun, if we no longer suffer heathen panic about the shortness of the days, we do acknowledge something called seasonal affective disorder which strikes at the solstice and can be treated with bright lights.

So here in the late 20th century, we still burn bright lights in the darkness, keep our stores open as late as summer days used to be, deck our cities in brightly colored decorations, and rush around like panicking druids, as if all these centuries later we're still raging against the dying of the light.

And here at the bottom of this thickly wooded river valley, the shadows fall even earlier. You won't find many darker cities than Knoxville in December. Maybe that's why Knoxvillians feel such an obligation to illuminate the season and cheer the lives of strangers.

So Merry Christmas. Here are some bright images that caught our attention this year.