Winter Solstice 2011: Astronomy Essentials -- the shortest day & longest night

from http://earthsky.org/

The shortest day is here! After the winter solstice, the days will get longer, and the nights shorter. It’s a seasonal shift that nearly everyone notices.
When is the solstice where I live?
The solstice happens at the same instant for all of us, everywhere on Earth. But our clocks say different times.
In 2011, the December solstice takes place on Thursday, Dec. 22, 12:30 a.m. Eastern Time Zone.
To find the time in your location, you have to translate to your time zone. Check out the following EarthSky article: 
Where should I look to see signs of the solstice in nature?
Everywhere.
For all of Earth’s creatures, nothing is so fundamental as the length of daylight. After all, the sun is the ultimate source of all light and warmth on Earth.
If you live in the northern hemisphere, you can notice the late dawns and early sunsets, and the low arc of the sun across the sky each day. You might notice how low the sun appears in the sky at local noon. And be sure to look at your noontime shadow. Around the time of the December solstice, it’s your longest noontime shadow of the year.
Many people have an unfavorable response to this time of short days and long nights. Some people try special lighting. Others take vacations to more southerly latitudes.
Why doesn’t the earliest sunset come on the shortest day?
The December solstice marks the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and longest day in the southern hemisphere. But the earliest sunset – or earliest sunrise if you’re south of the equator – seems to defy logic when it happens before the solstice.
How does this happen?
The key to understanding it is not to focus on the time of sunset or sunrise. The key is to focus on what is called true solar noon – the time of day that the sun reaches its highest point, in its journey across your sky.
In early December, true solar noon comes nearly 10 minutes earlier by the clock than it does at the solstice around December 21. With true noon coming later on the solstice, so will the sunrise and sunset times.
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-solstice-on-december-21