December is Alabama's quiet, mild winter — the Sandhill Cranes crowd Wheeler NWR, the camellias bloom against the cold, satsumas ripen on the coast, and the Christmas Bird Counts tally the wintering flocks. The long, clear, cold nights bring the brilliant winter sky and the Geminid meteors over the dark plateau.
Week by week in December
December 3–9
- Sandhill Cranes build toward their winter peak at Wheeler — thousands now, with a rare Whooping Crane possible among them. The refuge's Festival of the Cranes celebrates them in January.
- Protect cool-season greens under row covers on freeze nights, prune dormant fruit trees on mild days, and harvest coastal satsumas.
- Gulf-coast satsumas are at their peak and abundant pecans anchor the holiday markets, with frost-sweetened greens and storage crops.
December 10–16
- The Geminid meteor shower peaks around December 14 — one of the year's best, throwing dozens of bright, colorful meteors an hour from a dark site.
- Christmas Bird Counts tally the wintering flocks across the state, from Wheeler's cranes to the Gulf-coast loons and pelicans.
- The bare hardwoods reveal their architecture and hidden nests, while live oak, magnolia, holly, and the pines hold the winter green.
December 17–23
- The winter solstice around December 21 marks the year's longest night; Orion strides up the southeast within the brilliant Winter Hexagon.
- Camellias, the state flower, are in full winter bloom in the warm south, and eastern red cedar and holly bring greenery and red berries indoors.
- Feeders are busy with cardinals, chickadees, titmice, juncos, and kinglets, and the state-bird Yellowhammer works the open winter ground.
December 24–31
- Thousands of Sandhill Cranes crowd Wheeler at their winter peak, bugling over the frosty Tennessee River fields to close the year.
- Gulf-coast satsumas, holiday pecans, frost-sweetened collards and kale, and storage sweet potatoes carry the year-end markets.
- The long, cold, clear nights bring the Pleiades and the Orion Nebula to their best in binoculars from a dark Cumberland Plateau site.
Birds This Month
December is a prime winter birding month in Alabama, anchored by the Christmas Bird Counts held across the state. The Sandhill Cranes build toward their winter peak at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, gathering by the thousands in the fields along the Tennessee River — the refuge's annual Festival of the Cranes celebrates them each January — and a rare Whooping Crane or two from the eastern flock can sometimes be found among them. The lakes and the river hold rafts of wintering ducks — Mallard, Gadwall, wigeon, shoveler, Ring-necked Duck, Bufflehead, and mergansers — watched by Bald Eagles.
Feeders and brushy edges are busy with the winter regulars — Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, White-throated Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, Yellow-rumped and Pine Warblers, Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned Kinglets, Cedar Waxwings, and American Goldfinches, with the state bird, the Northern Flicker (Yellowhammer), on the open ground. On the Gulf Coast, the count circles tally wintering loons, grebes, gannets, ducks, Brown Pelicans, sparrows, and shorebirds, and the longleaf still holds the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker at its cavity clusters.
What's Blooming
December is the camellia's season in Alabama. The camellia (Camellia japonica), the state flower, comes into full winter bloom across the warmer middle and southern parts of the state, its red, pink, and white flowers opening against glossy evergreen leaves through the cold — a beloved Southern winter sight in old gardens and at Bellingrath Gardens near Mobile. The fall-blooming sasanqua camellias finish as the winter japonicas take over the long camellia season.
True wildflowers are few now, but the evergreen ground plants hold their color in the woods — Christmas fern, partridgeberry with paired red berries, and the wintergreen mats of spotted wintergreen. The native evergreen shrubs American holly and yaupon holly (in the south) carry bright red berries, the mistletoe clusters green in the bare hardwood crowns, and along the Mobile-Tensaw Delta the dahoon and possumhaw holly glow red. In mild coastal gardens, paperwhites, winter honeysuckle, and the earliest daffodils may open, and the structural seed-heads of last year's wildflowers stand through the winter fields.
Garden This Month
December gardening in Alabama splits between the frosty plateau and the mild Gulf Coast, but even the north never fully shuts down. The hardy cool-season garden carries on across the warm middle and south — harvest collards, kale, mustard, turnip greens, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, carrots, beets, and turnips, all sweetened by the frost, and protect lettuce and tender greens under row covers and cold frames. On the Gulf Coast, the cool-season garden grows on with little protection, and the satsumas and other citrus are harvested.
In the colder north, protect crops on hard-freeze nights, mulch deeply over garlic, onions, strawberries, and perennials, and let the beds rest under cover crops. This is a good month across the state to prune dormant apple, pear, and peach trees and muscadine grapes on mild dry days, to plant trees and shrubs in the cool soil, and to plan next year's garden from the seed catalogs. Clean and oil tools, organize seeds, and protect tender container plants and citrus from the hardest freezes. The Alabama garden rests but, in the milder south, never truly sleeps through the short, gentle winter.
Zone 7b (north Alabama & Cumberland Plateau): the coldest gardening, with hard freezes. Protect cool-season greens under row covers and cold frames, mulch perennials and overwintering garlic, prune dormant fruit trees on mild dry days, and plan next year's garden from the catalogs.
Zone 8b (lower Coastal Plain): mild winter gardening continues. Hardy collards, kale, cabbage, carrots, and lettuce grow on with light protection, you can still plant onions and garlic, and frost cloth handles the occasional hard freeze.
Zone 9a (Gulf Coast, Mobile & Baldwin): the mildest gardening of the state. Cool-season greens and root crops grow through the winter with little protection, satsumas and citrus are harvested, and you can sow more greens and peas for the long coastal season.
What's at the Farmers Market
December markets in Alabama lean on the hearty winter harvest, with the coast's citrus as the bright centerpiece. The Gulf-coast satsumas are at their peak around Mobile and Baldwin counties — easy-peeling, seedless, and sweet, the signature Alabama winter fruit — alongside kumquats and other coastal citrus. The Southern winter greens fill the tables: frost-sweetened collards, kale, mustard and turnip greens, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.
Storage crops carry the rest — sweet potatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, winter squash, pumpkins, turnips, and carrots — and new-crop pecans are abundant for the holiday season, a centerpiece of Alabama cooking. Local honey, sorghum syrup, cane syrup, and stone-ground grits and cornmeal round out the winter and holiday markets. Choose satsumas heavy for their size with loose skin and eat within a couple of weeks; freeze shelled pecans to protect their oils; keep sweet potatoes and winter squash cool and dry but never refrigerated; and store greens cold and damp. The markets close the year with the comfortable, hearty bounty of the Alabama winter.
Night Sky This Month
December brings the longest nights and some of the clearest, darkest skies of the Alabama year, especially from the cold Cumberland Plateau. The state's dark-sky havens — the Von Braun Astronomical Society observatory and planetarium at Monte Sano State Park near Huntsville, the Bankhead National Forest ridgelines, the dark Black Belt prairies, and the unlit Gulf beaches of west Dauphin Island — offer crisp winter viewing as the brilliant winter constellations take command.
The marquee event is the Geminid meteor shower, which peaks around December 14 — one of the best and most reliable showers of the year, throwing dozens of bright, slow, often colorful meteors an hour from a dark site, and pleasant to watch in the early evening as well as after midnight. Orion strides up the southeast with the great Winter Hexagon around it, dazzling Sirius below, the Pleiades riding high, and the misty Orion Nebula glowing in binoculars. The winter solstice around December 21 marks the year's longest night. The printable Alabama night-sky guide lists this year's exact Geminid peak, planet positions, and the best dark-sky sites for your region.
Butterflies & Pollinators
December all but ends Alabama's butterfly flight, though the mild Gulf Coast and warm spells keep a few species stirring on the year's gentlest days. In the south, a hardy cloudless sulphur, gulf fritillary, or common buckeye may appear on a warm December afternoon, and along the immediate coast a very late, lingering monarch is occasionally seen. In the wooded uplands of the north, an overwintering mourning cloak may flutter from its shelter on an unseasonably warm, sunny day.
Otherwise the butterflies pass the Alabama winter hidden in their various forms. The overwintering adults — mourning cloaks, eastern commas, and question marks — tuck behind loose bark, in woodpiles, hollow trees, and outbuildings in the uplands and along the Cumberland Plateau. The eastern tiger and spicebush swallowtails wait out the cold as camouflaged chrysalides, the coastal palamedes swallowtail as a chrysalis in the delta and swamp understory, and many skippers, whites, and sulphurs overwinter as eggs or larvae. Leaving the leaf litter, standing stems, and brush piles undisturbed through the winter is the single best gift an Alabama gardener can give next spring's butterflies.
What to plant for them is in the Alabama native plants guide
Trees This Month
December strips Alabama's deciduous forests to their bare winter architecture, while the evergreens hold the landscape and the season's signature trees come to the fore. The bare hardwoods reveal their forms and bark — the smooth gray of American beech holding pale marcescent leaves, the shaggy strips of shagbark hickory, the blocky bark of mature white oak, and the pale, flaking, camouflage trunks of sycamore glowing along the rivers — and the green clumps of mistletoe stand out in the bare crowns.
The evergreens define the winter: the longleaf, loblolly, and shortleaf pines, the broadleaf live oak draped in Spanish moss and the southern magnolia in the south, the American holly bright with red Christmas berries, the eastern red cedar (the classic Southern Christmas tree), and the russet ranks of dormant bald cypress rising from the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and the blackwater swamps. The trees set and hold their buds through the short, mild dormancy — the swelling red clusters on the red maples already promising that Alabama's early spring will return, as always, first in the warm south. The mast and the holly berries feed the wintering birds and mammals through the year's quiet close.
Weather & Daylight
Across Alabama, a typical December day averages a high near 58°F and a low near 37°F, with about 5.5 inches of precipitation — statewide averages from the 1991–2020 U.S. climate normals.
Winter settles in with chilly 58-degree days and cold 37-degree nights, plus the year's heaviest, steadiest rain.
| Average high | 58°F |
|---|---|
| Average low | 37°F |
| Precipitation | 5.5 in |
| Sunrise (mid-month) | 6:43 CT |
| Sunset (mid-month) | 16:43 CT |
Figures are statewide averages over the 1991–2020 U.S. climate normals; local conditions vary with elevation and distance from the coast. Sunrise and sunset are computed for a midstate point on the 15th (CT).
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One short note when Alabama's next month turns — what's arriving, blooming, and worth a night outside.
Go deeper with the Alabama guides
The complete Alabama birding, native-plant, and night-sky references — or the whole year, week by week, in one book.
Same month elsewhere: December in Arizona · December in Arkansas · December in California