"Half the charm"

"Again, without the idea of winter half the charm of Christmas would be gone. Transplanted in the imagination of western Christendom from an undefined season in the hot East to Europe at midwinter, the Nativity scenes have taken on a new pathos with the thought of the bitter cold in the rough stable ...."

Clement A. Miles, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan, 1912

"...and what delays ...."

"...the reason why winter suns race on to dip in the ocean,
And what delays the long nights."

Virgil, The Georgics, Book 2