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December 2022, Nature, Culture Childhood Calendar

December is the month where Fall turns into Winter and the natural world is settling into a long, cold winter. Plants are mostly dormant, many animals are in some sort of hibernation or reduced activity, and others have migrated south. Because the leaves have fallen from the trees, and especially once some snow falls, it is easier to notice and pay attention to animal signs like tracks, scat and other markings. The Cold Full Moon, or the Long Night Moon, is December 7th. The Winter Equinox, the shortest day and the longest night, and the first official day of Winter, is December 21st. With children, it is a good time to both adventure out into the cold and come together as families, friends and communities around stories, songs, games, food, and celebrations. Christmas with its pagan roots, Christian trappings, and consumer capitalist overload, looms large over the month. The Jewish holiday Hanukkah celebrates liberation from oppression and the rededication of the second temple in Jerusalem. And Kwanza, or “first fruits” in Swahili, modeled after the harvest festivals in Southern Africa, celebrates self-determination for African Americans, and tries to counter the overt commercialization of Christmas. December is a good time to go against the grain, slow down, take stock of the goodness and bounty of the earth, the changing seasons, the impermanence of all things, share gratitude for all the love and care that makes life possible, approach each other with a generous, open heart, and show joyful appreciation for each miraculous day. And if that involves a little Christmas music so be it! 

Harriet Tubman engineered her first successful rescue as a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad in December 1850

U.S. government passes the Endangered Species Act in 1973

December 1st

Indigenous people march from Chiapas to Mexico City for recognition, 1994

Frost starts to appear on the plants, grasses and other surfaces

Jan Brett, author, illustrator of The Mitten, The Snowy Nap, A Christmas Treasury, and Noah’s Ark, who has a delightful method of surrounding the main story with detailed drawings of individual creatures and objects, https://www.janbrett.com/, b. 1949

Rosa Parks refuses to move to the back of the bus, 1955

Scrabble the board game was copyright registered in 1948

December 2nd

Gray Squirrels remove the embryo of white oak acorns to prevent them from germinating and reducing their nutritional value to the squirrel

David Macauley, author of encyclopedic non-fiction books filled with fantastically detailed accessible illustrations, like “How Everything Works, Ship, Castle, and Mosque, b. 1946

3 nuns and a day worker killed by the US backed El Salvadoran National Guard, 1980

President Richard Nixon, with bi-partisan support, creates the Environmental Protection Agency, in 1970

December 3rd

Frederick Douglass publishes first issue of North Star, an anti-slavery newspaper in 1847

Educator A. S. Neil establishes the Summerhill anti-authoritarian, free school, in 1921

Abandoned bird nests visible because the leaves have fallen from the trees

International Day of People with Disabilities

George Ancona, author of From Seed to Garden, and patron saint of the school garden movement, b. 1929

Galileo perfected his invention of the telescope, in 1621

December 4th

Munro Leaf, author of The Story of Ferdinand the Bull, b. 1905

Anarchists protest anti-immigration laws in Manhattan in 1892

Muskrats continue to forage for food throughout the winter using sticks, vegetation and mud to create “push ups” and “breathers” in thin ice

Rainer Maria Rilke, poet, writer of Letters to a Young Poet,  b.1875

Wildlife Conservation Day 

December 5th

World Soil Day

ACLU ( American Civil Liberties Union) founded in 1920

Betty Smith, author of the young adult novel A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, about growing up poor in the city,  b. 1915

Louise Bryant radical journalist, feminist, freethinker, b. 1885

Montgomery Bus Boycott begins in 1955

Chiclets gum was trademarked in 1905

Walt Disney, prodigious creator of beloved movies and TV for children, steward of a media empire, cultural purveyor and colonizer of children’s minds, b. 1901

December 6th

Thirteenth Amendment adopted , abolishing slavery in the U.S. in 1865

Coyote feed on deer carcasses

December 7th

Noam Chomsky, linguist, anarcho-syndicalist, libertarian, socialist, social critic, author, activist, b. 1928

Full Moon of the Long Night ( last full moon before the winter solstice)

Japanese government attacks Pearl Harbor, providing the impetus for the U.S. entry into World War 2

December 8th

Porcupines use their specialized teeth to eat the soft inner bark, or cambium, of trees, especially in winter

Mary Azarion, visual artist, woodblock printer extraordinaire, children’s book illustrator, including the amazing, Snowflake Bentley, b. 1940

Diego Rivera, radical Mexican muralist, b. 1886

December 9th

Peter Kropotkin, Russian anarchist, writer, activist who wrote Mutual Aid, b. 1842

Sharp shinned hawk, the smallest hawk in North America, uses its long tail and short wings to fly through dense woods in search of birds to eat

Joel Handler Harris, white folklorist and  faithful transcriber of the Brer Rabbit Stories, one of the largest storehouses of African American folklore, b. 1848

Jean de Brunhoff, author and illustrator of the extraordinary Babar books, somewhat tainted by the implicit benign British colonialist subtext of the stories, b. 1899

John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, b. 1608

A Charlie Brown Christmas, a commentary on the commercialization and subsequent loss of the Christmas spirit, airs on tv for the first time in 1965

December 10th

International Human Rights Day

Society for Human Rights founded, first gay rights organization in US, in 1924

Emily Dickenson, poet, recluse and visionary, b. 1830

December 11th

David Brewster, inventor of the kaleidoscope, b. 1781

Sedges, grass like plants that frequent meadows, marshes and bogs, and cattails, provide a ready source of food in the form of leaves and seeds, for many animals in the winter

International Mountain Day

Mos Def,  American rapper, big part of the conscious rap movement, and member of the hip hop duo, Black Star,  b. 1973

December 12th

William Loyd Garrison , journalist, abolitionist , and women’s suffrage ally, b. 1805

Occupy Movement shuts down West Coasts ports in Oakland CA, in 2011

Hooded Mergansers are short distance migrators, flying only as far South as they need to find open water.

Barbara Christian, Black Feminist scholar, author of The Race for Theory, b. 1943 

Bob Barker, part Sioux Indian, famous gameshow host, b. 1923

December 13th

Geminids Meteor Shower

MIT hosts first World Wide Web Consortium meeting in 1994

Ella Baker, civil and human rights activist, b. 1903

December 14th

UN affirms status of Puerto Rico as US colony and recognizes right to independence

Eastern Hemlock Trees, that take 250-300 years to mature,  disperse seeds from the female cones that are favorites to many animals active in the winter

Ellen Willis, red-stocking feminist, rock critic, b. 1941

Wilma Mankiller becomes chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, in 1985

Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting where 20 children and 6 adults were killed, 2012

Roald Amundson reaches the South Pole, in 1911

December 15th

Los Angeles Food Not Bombs organizer Dan Dipasquo arrested for sharing and distributing free food

The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the constitution, was ratified in 1791

Garter snakes gather in large groups of 100 or more, even including other species of snakes, in hibernicula where they go into dormancy and lie off the fat they have accumulated over the spring summer and fall

December 16th

Spiders hibernate in leaf litter and under dead tree bark

Jean-Bertrand Aristide becomes the first democratically elected president of Haiti in 1990

Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist who championed gender equality, cultural relativism, and sexual liberation focused her research on child rearing, human development, sexual mores, division of labor, and practices of enculturation, b. 1901 

Carter G. Woodson, Black educator, historian, writer of the Mis-education of the Negro, b. 1875

Group of high school students suspended for wearing black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War, in 1965

Mount Fuji in Japan erupted for the last time in 1707

Wassily Kandinsky, painter, pioneer in abstraction, colors, shapes and lines, b. 1866 

December 17th

International day to End Violence Against Sex Workers 

Butcher Birds, one of the few predatory songbirds, will kill more animals than they can eat at one time, and store the carcasses of the animals they kill, impaled on thorns and sticks to recover at a later date

First episode of The Simpsons airs in 1989

First flight of the Wright Flyer, a powered aircraft, in 1903

Discovery of the Aztec Stone Calendar the Five Eras in Mexico City , in 1790

December 18th

Hanukah begins at sundown

Britain abolishes capitol punishment in 1969

Deer switch to woody plants in the winter that are harder to digest and have less protein so they conserve energy by growing thicker coats, creating deer “yards,” and following paths created by other animals

Paul Klee, Swiss-born German artist, known for his colorful abstract expressionism and the “childlike” quality of paintings, b. 1879

December 19th

Woodpecker’s remove bark from trees, both by sloughing of whole pieces of dead bark, and by removing individual scales of bark in search of insects

Eve Bunting, born in Northern Ireland, beloved American children’s writer of over 250 books including Fly Away Home, Moonstick, Terrible Things, and Flower Garden, b.1928

Surrounded by much secrecy, SCORE,  Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment, launched the world’s first communication satellite in 1958

December 20th

Mice renovate abandoned bird nests by covering them with milkweed or cattail fluff, and either live in them or use them as food caches

Montgomery Bus Boycott prevails after 381 days and a federal court rules that Alabama laws requiring segregated buses were unconstitutional, 1956

Louisiana Purchase completed whereby the U.S. acquired the French territory of “Louisiana” from the French, in 1803

December 21st

Maidenhair Spleenwort Evergreen ferns grow in the crevices of rocks

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination adopted in 1965

Winter Solstice 

December 22nd

Jerry Pinkney, towering figure in children’s literature, interpreter of classic fairy and folk tales, historical fiction, and weaver of new stories ( don’t miss Star over Moon), painter of magical, realistic, inviting water color illustrations, and voice for the African American child’s cultural experience, b. 1939

New Moon

Amelia Bloomer urges reform of women’s clothing by wearing loose trousers under short skirt, aka “bloomers,”  in 1851

John Trudell broadcasts Radio Free Alcatraz, for the first time, to share information about the Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island, 1969

Jean-Michel Basquiat, NYC painter, collagist, b.1960

1.5 mile long Lincoln Tunnel opens passing under the Hudson Rive and connecting New Jersey to New York

First Christmas tree illuminated by electric lights in 1882

December 23rd

Samuel Mockbee, educator, artist, “architect to the poor,” b. 1944

White tailed deer make beds together facing in different directions to watch out for predators

December 24th

John Gruelle, creator and author of the Raggedy Ann and Andy books, two lovable rag dolls that get into a mess of misadventures, but everything always seems to come out in the wash ( including a button eye or two)  b. 1880

Klu Klux Klan founded in Pulaski Tennessee, in 1865

Joseph Cornell, visual artist and celebrated proponent of “assemblages,” boxes, cabinets, and dioramas, , b. 1903

December 25th

Christmas, Jesus Christ’s birth, rabble rouser, mystic, street activist, friend to the poor and the oppressed, born in a barn because a greedy innkeeper turned Mary and Joseph away, born or least celebrated December 25th somewhere around 5 BC ( date highly disputed!) 

Africans and Native Americans form Florida’s Seminole Nation, and defeat a heavily armed invading U.S. federal army

Barn Owls, with tremendous vision, can see a mouse at 6 to 7 feet  with the illumination of.00000073 foot-candles —the equivalent of human beings seeing a mouse a mile away by the light of a match

Isaac Newton, physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, philosopher, theologian, b. 1642

December 26th

Red fox tracks “direct register,” its hind feet land exactly where its front feet were placed

In the largest mass execution in U.S. history, 38 Dakota Indians were executed by order of the military court and signed by Abraham Lincoln, during the U.S. Dakota War of 1862

Kwanza begins 

Indian Ocean earthquake, third strongest in recorded history at 9.1 on the Richter scale, and subsequent tsunami, killed over 200,000 people 

Having been celebrated officially since 1863 (in a bid to unify the nation in the midst of Civil War), the forth Thursday of November  was set as Thanksgiving Day ( in the midst of the nationalistic fervor of World War 11),  in 1941

December 27th 

Turkeys feed on Eastern Hemlock buds, burdock seeds and ostrich fern fronds

The words for the Star Trek tv show theme were registered in 1966

Anesthesia used for the first time for childbirth revolutionizing the use of anesthesia in medicine and surgery, 1845

Charles Darwin begins his 5 year voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, where he worked out his theory of evolution, in 1831

December 28th

Coyotes make “snow angels” by rolling in the snow

Lumiere brothers give first commercial showing of a film in 1895

December 29th

U.S. troops kill between 200-300 Oglala Sioux people in Wounded Knee massacre at Pine Ridge, SD, 1890

Weasels hunt for food along stone walls during the winter

Molly Bang, prodigious, idiosyncratic, endlessly fascinating author of children’s books on a range of topics including: Common Ground: The Water, Earth, and Air We Share; Ten, Nine , Eight; and The Sunlight Series, b. 1943

Richard Atwater, author of the delightfully oddball, dreamy children’s book, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, b.1896

Charles Macintosh patented the first waterproof material (the Mackintosh raincoat  was named after him), in 1823

December 30th

Patti Smith singer, poet, musician, b. 1946

Daniel Ellsberg indicted by a federal grand jury for releasing the Pentagon Papers which shed light on the corruption, dishonesty, violence, and ineptitude of the United States military and government in the Vietnam War, 1971

Rudyard Kipling, racist, misogynist, Anti-semite, and beloved author of The Jungle Book, b. 1865

December 31st

Bald Eagles can over winter wherever their is open water

Gerald Mcdermott, protege of Joseph Campbell, children’s author and illustrator, retells folktales and mythology from around the world with eye catching illustrations, my favorite being Anansi: An Ashanti Folktale. Has gotten some appropriate criticism for cultural misappropriation and embedding European themes into non-European stories, under the guise of “universal values” ( see the critique of Arrow to the Sun),  b.1941

Roberto Clemente dies in a plane crash while delivering aid to people in earthquake devastated Nicaragua, 1972

Manhattan Bridge, one of the first suspension bridges ever constructed, opens  for traffic between Brooklyn and New York, in 1909

U.S. hands over Panama Canal to Panamanian sovereignty

New Year’s Eve