Tag Archives: December

November 28, 2025 · 7:36 PM

December 2025 Literary Calendar

Events in the month of December for writers and readers

Read a New Book Month

  • December 1 – National Christmas Lights Day; World AIDS Day
  • December 2 – International Day for the Abolition of Slavery
  • December 3 – International Day of Persons with Disabilities
  • December 4 – Wildlife Conservation Day
  • December 5 – Walt Disney’s Birthday; International Volunteer Day; World Soil Day
  • December 6 – Ira Gershwin’s Birthday; Joyce Kilmer’s Birthday
  • December 7 – International Civil Aviation Day; National Letter Writing Day
  • December 9 – John Milton’s Birthday; Christmas Card Day; International Anti-Corruption Day; International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide; National Llama Day
  • December 10 – Emily Dickinson’s Birthday; Dewey Decimal System Day; Human Rights Day; International Animal Rights Day; Nobel Prize Day
  • December 11 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Birthday; International Mountain Day; International UNICEF Day
  • December 12 – International Day of Neutrality; International Universal Health Coverage Day
  • December 13 – National Day of the Horse (U.S.)
  • December 14 – Nostradamus’ Birthday
  • December 14-22 – Hanukkah
  • December 15 – Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof’s Birthday; Bill of Rights Day (U.S.)
  • December 16 – Jane Austen’s Birthday; Ludwig van Beethoven’s Birthday; National Chocolate Covered Anything Day
  • December 17 – National Maple Syrup Day (U.S.); Wright Brothers Day (U.S.)
  • December 18 – International Migrants Day; National Twin Day (U.S.)
  • December 20 – International Human Solidarity Day
  • December 21 – Crossword Puzzle Day; Look on the Bright Side Day; National Short Story Day; Summer Solstice (Southern Hemisphere); Winter Solstice (Northern Hemisphere)
  • December 22 – National Short Person Day
  • December 23 – Robert Bly’s Birthday; Harriet Monroe’s Birthday; National Roots Day
  • December 24 – Mary Higgins Clark’s Birthday; Jolabokaflod (Iceland)
  • December 25 – Christmas Day
  • December 26 – Boxing Day
  • December 26 – January 1 – Kwanzaa
  • December 27 – International Day of Epidemic Preparedness
  • December 28 – National Call a Friend Day; National Short Film Day
  • December 30 – National Bacon Day
  • December 31 – Henri Matisse’s Birthday; No Interruptions Day

Famous December Birthdays

Other December Events

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November 29, 2024 · 6:41 PM

December 2024 Literary Calendar

Events in the month of December for writers and readers

Read a New Book Month

  • December 1 – National Christmas Lights Day; World AIDS Day
  • December 2 – International Day for the Abolition of Slavery
  • December 3 – International Day of Persons with Disabilities
  • December 4 – Wildlife Conservation Day
  • December 5 – Walt Disney’s Birthday; International Volunteer Day; World Soil Day
  • December 6 – Ira Gershwin’s Birthday; Joyce Kilmer’s Birthday
  • December 7 – International Civil Aviation Day; National Letter Writing Day
  • December 9 – John Milton’s Birthday; Christmas Card Day; International Anti-Corruption Day; International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide; National Llama Day
  • December 10 – Emily Dickinson’s Birthday; Dewey Decimal System Day; Human Rights Day; International Animal Rights Day; Nobel Prize Day
  • December 11 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Birthday; International Mountain Day; UNICEF Birthday
  • December 12 – International Day of Neutrality; International Universal Health Coverage Day
  • December 13 – National Day of the Horse (U.S.)
  • December 14 – Nostradamus’ Birthday
  • December 15 – Bill of Rights Day (U.S.)
  • December 16 – Jane Austen’s Birthday; Ludwig van Beethoven’s Birthday; National Chocolate Covered Anything Day
  • December 17 – National Maple Syrup Day (U.S.); Wright Brothers Day (U.S.)
  • December 18 – International Migrants Day; National Twin Day (U.S.)
  • December 20 – International Human Solidarity Day
  • December 21 – Crossword Puzzle Day; Look on the Bright Side Day; National Short Story Day; Summer Solstice (Southern Hemisphere); Winter Solstice (Northern Hemisphere)
  • December 22 – National Short Person Day
  • December 23 – Robert Bly’s Birthday; Harriet Monroe’s Birthday; National Roots Day
  • December 24 – Mary Higgins Clark’s Birthday; Jolabokaflod (Iceland)
  • December 25 – Christmas Day; Hanukkah begins
  • December 26 – Boxing Day; Kwanzaa begins
  • December 27 – International Day of Epidemic Preparedness
  • December 28 – National Call a Friend Day; National Short Film Day
  • December 30 – National Bacon Day
  • December 31 – Henri Matisse’s Birthday; No Interruptions Day

Famous December Birthdays

Other December Events

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November 29, 2023 · 2:44 PM

December 2023 Literary Calendar

Events in the month of December for writers and readers

Read a New Book Month

Famous December Birthdays

Other December Events

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November 30, 2022 · 7:08 AM

December 2022 Literary Calendar

Events in the month of December for writers and readers

Read a New Book Month (also September)

Famous December Birthdays

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December 24, 2020 · 3:09 PM

Have a Creepy Victorian Christmas

We have so many reasons to be thankful for the times in which we live: air conditioning, television, cell phones, cars, and no creepy Victorian-era Christmas cards.  It may be difficult to imagine, but our ancestors of the 19th and early 20th centuries either had a distorted idea of what the yuletide season is supposed to represent or they had too much alcohol and not enough sex.

Whatever was wrong with them, we can undoubtedly determine their bizarre mindsets from a glance at some of their holiday cards.  I mean…what reasonable person would glean Christmas joy from images of dead birds and dancing frogs?  Then again, look who’s talking!

“May Christmas be Merry” (19th-century)

“May yours be a Joyful Christmas”

“May all jollity ‘lighten’ your Christmas hours”
“A Happy Christmas” (1900)
“Greetings from Krampus”
“Absent friends [natives], may we soon see them again! A merry Christmas to you” (1876)
“A hearty Christmas greeting: Four jovial froggies / a skating would go; / They asked their mamma, / but she’d sternly said, ‘No!’ / And they all came to grief in a beautiful row. / There’s a sweet Christmas moral for one not too slow. / Just so!”
The red ants have a flag that reads: “The compliments of the season”

“I have come to greet you” (Inside it says: “Loving Christmas greetings, may smiling faces ring around your glowing hearth this Christmas day, may fun and merriment abound, and all your world be glad and gay”)
“Best wishes for Christmas”
“A happy Christmas”
“So please excuse this impecunious card, As all I’m good for is a used up.”
Christmas card by Wilhelm Larsen (c. 1890)
“Every good wish for your Christmas”
“A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” (1876)
“A happy Christmas to you”
“Wishing you a merry Christmas” (featuring a goldfinch, bee, and cricket)
“Merry Christmas” (Christmas pudding-themed card)
“With many merry Christmas greetings”
A Victorian snowman
“Here’s a crow for Christmas”
An example of one of the first Australian Christmas cards

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