It’s all downhill from here. The winter solstice   —  officially the first day of winter, although I have my own definition — is the shortest day and the longest night of the year.  Of course that’s in the Northern Hemisphere; in the Southern Hemisphere it’s just the reverse.  Depending upon your time zone, the solstice will fall on either December 21 or 22. Then the days will be getting pregressively longer until the summer solstice.  But we don’t have to think about that for awhile yet.

For more information, see “Everything you need to know: December solstice 2015”  at http://earthsky.org/earth/everything-you-need-to-know-december-solstice