December

Welcome to the last month of the year, ya'll!! We made it through another year! December is a wonderful, but hectic month (take a look at all the December words to the right and see if you agree with any of them!!). Things take on a more festive, light-hearted attitude. People around the world celebrate various holidays with a variety of customs, faiths and beliefs. Here are a few fun tidbits about the awesomeness that is our twelfth month of the year.

• For those with December birthdays, blue topaz is the traditional birthstone. Turquoise is the alternate birthstone for December.
• There are 31 days in the month of December.
• The birth flower for the month of December is the paper white narcissus. The narcissus symbolizes self-esteem.
• Holidays during the month of December are Hanukkah (beginning December 1st), Christmas (December 25th), Kwanzaa (beginning December 26th) and New Year's Eve (December 31st).
• How do you spell December in other languages? Here are a few of them:
• Spanish: diciembre
  Italian: Dicembre
  French: décembre
  German: Dezember
  Polish: grudnia
  Latin: augustus
  Russian: Декабрь
• December 12th is Poinsettia Day.

Here are a few important and historic dates for the month of December:

• 1941 - Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
• 1955 - Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give her seat to a white man and not moving to the back of a bus.
  
• 1958 - Charles de Gaulle was elected President of France's 5th Republic.
• 1980 - John Lennon was shot in New York City.
• 1981 - The first test tube baby was born.
• 1983 - Lech Walesa, Poland's Solidarity Union's founder, received the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 1988 - Benazir Bhutto named first female PM of a Muslim country (Pakistan).

Well, there ya have it, a few interesting items about the month of December that aren't wrapped up in green and red! Until next time, keep it clean!!