When I think of winter, I think of my four years at the University of Chicago. Gray limestone buildings with gray gargoyles rising out of gray snow against a gray winter sky. By the end of January, your eyes ached for color - red, orange, yellow, anything to break up the gray. Winter was the perfect quarter for reading with long Russian novels and listening to Mauler symphonies. You can imagine the joy at the first warm light of Spring, or the first crocus flower that popped out of the ground full of color.
Darkness means disorientation, despair.
We associate darkness with death. Total darkness would be intolerable. We were created to live in the light. In fact, total darkness is probably one of the most frightening things we could experience. We never really experience total darkness in this life.