Aurinko nousee: 09.24
Aurinko laskee: 15.13
So today, the winter solstice or shortest day (in the northern hemisphere) the sun is (barely) above the horizon for a mere 5 hours and 48 minutes in Helsinki, more than 2 hours less than in London. Even at noon the sun is only 6.5º above the horizon, so usually still behind buildings and trees, even when it isn't cloudy.
Some great photos by Mikael Rantalainen of Finnish winter sunrise/sets can be found here. Makes me want to get my camera out and look for likely spots...
Strangely (as you may have learnt in your school geography lessons) the sun continues to rise later (by a few minutes) until about the 6th of January even though the days start getting longer, because of the earths inclination and elliptical orbit.
Yule (Joulu), the pre-christian celebration of the winter solstice has been long absorbed into first the christian and now the the pseudo-christian commercial holiday we have now (although a few days later) and in the celebrations of the new (calendar) year.
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