December’s Full Moon is aptly known as the Cold Moon. It will look its’ largest on Wednesday night as it is at its fullest at 04.08am on Thursday. Sunrise is at 7:52am on 8th December, so the best time to see the Cold Moon will be between 4am and 7am, as it lingers low on the horizon in a pre-dawn sky. The Moon will then slip below the horizon at 8:29am.

Other names that indicate the cold and snow given to this Full Moon are:

• Drift Clearing Moon (Cree),
• Frost Exploding Trees Moon (Cree),
• Moon of the Popping Trees (Oglala),
• Hoar Frost Moon (Cree),
• Snow Moon (Haida, Cherokee),
• Winter Maker Moon (Western Abenaki)
• Moon When the Deer Shed Their Antlers (Dakota)
• Little Spirit Moon (Anishinaabe).

This Full Moon has also been called the Long Night Moon (Mohican), as it rises during the “longest” nights of the year, which are near the December winter solstice.

In Europe, ancient pagans called the December Full Moon the “Moon Before Yule,” in honour of the Yuletide festival celebrating the return of the sun heralded by winter solstice.

Here are the Full Moon dates for 2023:

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