The final full moon of 2023 will peer over the horizon on Monday, the night of Christmas, and reach its peak the following evening \u2014 offering a warm lunar glow during the cool holiday nights. <\/p>\n
December\u2019s full moon could appear wholly round to the naked eye as early as Sunday and will continue illuminating the night sky for a few evenings after it reaches its maximum fullness on Tuesday at 7:33 p.m. ET, according to the Old Farmer\u2019s Almanac. <\/p>\n
This month\u2019s full moon is also known as the \u201ccold moon,\u201d a term coined by Native Americans \u2014 specifically the Mohawk people \u2014 in reference to the cooler temperatures typically associated with December in the Northern Hemisphere. (Though climate change is quickly making the winter months warmer.) <\/p>\n
Other names for the final full moon of the year include the \u201cSnow Moon,\u201d the \u201cWinter Maker Moon,\u201d and even the \u201cMoon When the Deer Shed Their Antlers,\u201d a nod to the fact that the antlers of many deer species \u2014 including deer, elk, moose and caribou \u2014 begin to fall off around this time as breeding season comes to a close. The animals will grow another, usually larger, set next year. <\/p>\n
(Notably, only female caribou retain their antlers by Christmas time. And that means Santa\u2019s reindeer, which are domesticated caribou, can be identified as female.) <\/p>\n
This month\u2019s full moon will also be the first to appear since the winter solstice, which occurred on December 21\u00a0and marks the shortest day of the year. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe winter solstice Moon takes the highest path along the sky and is above the horizon longer than any Moon \u2014 hence, it\u2019s the longest night,\u201d according to the Almanac. <\/p>\n
And because the full cold moon is occurring so close to the solstice, the long nights will offer ample viewing opportunities. <\/p>\n
Sky-gazers can catch a glimpse of the massive moon anywhere with a clear view of the sky. Though for best viewing, onlookers can search for unobstructed views of the horizon. <\/p>\n\n
The final full moon of 2023 will peer over the horizon on Monday, the night of Christmas, and reach its peak the following evening \u2014 offering a warm lunar glow during the cool holiday nights. December\u2019s full moon could appear wholly round to the naked eye as early as Sunday and will continue illuminating the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13253,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}