Cold Moon: December’s Full Moon

3 min read

6 days ago Leo S

Originally written on December 17, 2021 – Updated 2025

👉🏼December’s full Moon, named “full Cold Moon”, in 2025 appears on Thursday, December 4, reaching peak illumination at 6.14 P.M. EST, and this year it’s a dazzling Supermoon. Rising brighter and slightly larger than usual, it lights up our winter nights.
About the moon, according to folklore, the nearer the New Moon to Christmas Day, the harder the Winter!

Moreover, look skyward on the night of December 13 after 9 P.M. for a chance to catch a glimpse of the Geminid meteors, the most active shower of the year.👈🏼

As the winter solstice approaches, the chill in the air deepens, and the frosty grip of winter begins to tighten.
Days grow ever shorter, and the nights are at their longest and darkest (well…more or less!).
It is, therefore, no wonder that December’s full Moon is known as both the Cold Moon and the Long Night’s Moon.

Why is it called the “Cold Moon”?
As we already know, traditionally, moon names come from Native American, Colonial American, or other traditional sources passed down through generations. Lot of Native Americans traditionally used the monthly Moons and nature’s corresponding signs as a calendar to track the seasons.
In ancient times, it was common to track the changing seasons by following the lunar month rather than the solar year, which the 12 months in our modern calendar are based on.
Nowadays December’s full Moon is most commonly known as the Cold Moon, a Mohawk name that conveys the frigid conditions of this time of year, when cold weather truly sets in.

Not by chance, December is the month when winter truly begins in most of the Northern Hemisphere, and most of the ancient Full Moon names are related to the low temperatures and darkness of December.
Other names that allude to the cold and snow include Drift Clearing Moon (Cree), Frost Exploding Trees Moon (Cree), Moon of the Popping Trees (Oglala), Hoar Frost Moon (Cree), Snow Moon (Haida, Cherokee), and Winter Maker Moon (Western Abenaki), but it has also been called the Long Night Moon (Mohican), because it rises during the “longest” nights of the year, which are near the December winter solstice. This name is doubly fitting because December’s full Moon shines above the horizon for a longer period of time than most full Moons.
Other names include Moon When the Deer Shed Their Antlers (Dakota) and Little Spirit Moon (Anishinaabe).

In Europe, ancient pagans called the December full Moon the “Moon Before Yule,” in honor of the Yuletide festival celebrating the return of the sun heralded by winter solstice. Yule or Yuletide is an ancient festival observed by Germanic people, and many present-day Christmas traditions can be traced to it.
The December Full Moon is also called Oak Moon, while a Celtic name was Wolf Moon. Today, however, this name is more common for the January Full Moon.