Newgrange is a UNESCO world heritage site, and is the location of what is probably the oldest, continuous Winter Solstice celebration, Alban Arthan, or “winter light.”
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. Everything has to adapt to colder shorter days, the longer colder nights, and the ice and the snow. 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 26th. 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, celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus and the gift of generosity, 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. We can look for the roots of our common humanity in Winter Solstice celebrations around the world. 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.
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 came out with some his first major improvements to 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 and dream factory, cultural purveyor of gender stereotypes and enticing 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 who have succumbed to the cold
December 7th
Noam Chomsky, linguist, anarcho-syndicalist, libertarian, socialist, social critic, author, activist, b. 1928
Japanese government attacks Pearl Harbor, providing the impetus for the U.S. entry into World War 2
Hanukah celebrating and memorializing the liberation of the Jewish people from political oppression begins ( 12/7-12/15
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 shipping 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
New Moon rising in Sagittarius
December 13th
Geminids Meteor Shower peak evenings
MIT hosts first World Wide Web Consortium meeting in 1994
Ella Baker, civil and human rights activist, b. 1903
December 14th
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 hibernacula, 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 of the Five Eras in Mexico City , in 1790
December 18th
Britain abolishes capital 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
https://www.colorincolorado.org/author/eve-bunting
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 watercolor illustrations, and voice for the African American child’s cultural experience, b. 1939
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
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/radio-free-alcatraz/
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 in the first Seminole War, in 1817
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 (first fruits in Swahili), an annual celebration of African American culture, begins
Indian Ocean earthquake, third strongest in recorded history at 9.1 on the Richter scale, and subsequent tsunami, killed over 200,000 people, 2004
Having been celebrated officially since 1863 (in a bid to unify the nation in the midst of Civil War), the fourth 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
