Best wishes...
This is a special time of year. This is a time when each of us can look up in the sky and see above us the symbol of everything that makes us human. Today, the sun hung in the sky just a little longer than it did yesterday. And there will be more light tomorrow than there was today.
We know this because we can measure the movements of celestial bodies with tremendous accuracy. And we can attach the movements of those bodies to something we all share within us: hope.
Without observation and hope, verification and faith, we would not be human. So tomorrow when you go outside know that you will be looking at the same symbol of hope that I see. This annual return of the light allows us to share in our hearts and in our eyes the essence of who we are.
All the best in the coming year.
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And to you as well. 
the winter solstice is always gratefully acknowledged and celebrated.
As the daylight gradually grows longer, my own major hope is rather mundane: I just want a better chance of avoiding having a collision with a suicidal deer on my daily commute to and from work.
This is not to say, however, that your more philosophical sentiments are not appreciated.
My grandparents were both Norwegian and I also commemorate the winter solstice. Of course not the way their ancestors did but in my own way. Happy Solstice! 
I wouldn't say it's so much genetic memory as genetic predisposition. I couldn't possibly tolerate living at a southern latitude. I love the long winter nights, while I also love knowing that they'll get shorter over time.
I guess I just love being able to observe the changing angles of the sun and the moon at a northern latitude because the contrasts are so striking. There is nothing so beautiful to me as a full moon turning the snow into a gazillion sparkling points of light offset by blue shadows.
If I were ever inclined to move from where I live now, it would be to move further north.