Tennessee Nature Guide: December 2026
Data updated: August 2026Sources & method · Corrections
December is full winter in Tennessee, and the heart of the crane and eagle season — Sandhill Cranes peak at the Hiwassee Refuge as the winter crane festival celebrates them, Bald Eagles crowd Reelfoot, and the Christmas Bird Counts sweep the state. The bare hardwoods, the dark cedar glades, and the snow-dusted Smokies stand under the year's longest, clearest, coldest nights.
Week by week in December
December 3–9
- Sandhill Cranes reach a winter peak of many thousands at Hiwassee, their bugling carrying across the valley.
- Orion strides up the south and the Winter Hexagon wheels overhead on the long, cold, clear December nights.
- Fraser-fir Christmas trees, wreaths, and evergreens from the East Tennessee mountains fill the markets.
December 10–16
- The Geminid meteor shower, the year's best, peaks around December 14, throwing bright slow meteors all night from a dark site.
- Bald Eagles crowd the cypress at Reelfoot and the eagle tours run as Christmas Bird Counts begin across the state.
- The high Smokies summits stand snow-dusted in dark red spruce and Fraser fir over the bare valleys.
December 17–23
- The winter solstice near December 21 brings the year's longest night, with Orion, the Pleiades, and the Winter Hexagon blazing.
- Christmas Bird Counts sweep Tennessee, tallying the wintering cranes, eagles, waterfowl, and feeder birds.
- American holly and red cedar hang heavy with red and blue berries that feed the winter waxwing flocks.
December 24–31
- The Sandhill Crane spectacle holds at its winter peak at Hiwassee as the year's last Christmas Bird Counts wrap up.
- Sirius blazes below Orion in the long, cold, clear nights — some of the sharpest skies of the year from the Cumberland Plateau.
- Evergreen red cedar, holly, and the high Fraser fir stand dark against the bare hardwoods as the year closes.
Birds This Month
December is one of Tennessee's premier birding months, anchored by the great winter gatherings. At the Hiwassee Refuge on the Tennessee River, Sandhill Cranes reach a winter peak of many thousands, their bugling carrying across the valley, with the chance of a Whooping Crane among them — the Sandhill Crane Festival celebrates them this month. At Reelfoot Lake, wintering Bald Eagles crowd the cypress and the eagle tours run, while the lake and the reservoirs hold rafts of Mallard, Gadwall, Canvasback, Ring-necked Duck, Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye, and Hooded Merganser.
The Christmas Bird Counts sweep Tennessee this month, tallying the wintering cranes, eagles, waterfowl, and feeder birds. Yards and feeders fill with the state bird, the Northern Mockingbird, alongside Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, White-throated Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Purple Finches in an irruption year. Cedar Waxwings and American Robins swarm the berry-laden hollies and cedars, open country holds American Kestrels and Northern Harriers, and the high mountains carry Golden-crowned Kinglets, Ruffed Grouse, and Brown Creepers.
What's Blooming
December offers no wildflowers across most of Tennessee, but the milder West Tennessee bottoms and the structure of the winter fields keep the landscape alive. The dried seed-heads and grasses carry the dormant fields — the rusty plumes of broomsedge, little bluestem, and Indian grass, the dark cones of coneflower and black-eyed Susan feeding the goldfinches, the split silk-trailing pods of milkweed, and the bleached umbels of Queen Anne's lace.
In the woods the evergreen ground plants hold their green — Christmas fern, partridgeberry with paired red berries, and spotted wintergreen on the slopes — and the native evergreen mountain laurel, American holly, and dense eastern red cedar of the glades anchor the bare forest, their red and blue berries feeding the winter flocks. In sheltered Middle and West Tennessee gardens the sasanqua and the first japonica camellias bloom, fragrant wintersweet and witch hazel open on bare twigs, and the earliest hellebores (Lenten roses) and snowdrops can show during a December thaw.
Garden This Month
December turns most Tennessee gardeners to rest and planning, though the mild west keeps a winter garden going. Across the high plateau and mountains the ground freezes and may hold snow, so the work moves to the kitchen table with seed catalogs — review the past season, order early for next year (especially the shorter-season varieties the plateau favors), and sketch crop rotations to limit disease. In Middle and West Tennessee, cold frames and row covers carry collards, kale, spinach, lettuce, and carrots, the South's winter greens, fresh into the holidays.
Outdoors, let snow insulate the perennial beds on the plateau and brush heavy wet snow off arborvitae and evergreens to prevent breakage. Prune dormant apple, peach, and pear trees and grapevines on mild dry days, check that mulch still protects overwintering garlic, strawberries, and tender shrubs, and watch for deer browsing during the lean weeks. Keep the bird feeders full and the heated water source open, and leave the seed-heads, standing stems, and brush piles in place — they feed the winter birds and shelter next year's beneficial insects through the cold.
Zone 6b (Cumberland Plateau & East Tennessee valleys): the ground is freezing and may carry snow. Let snow insulate perennial beds, brush heavy wet snow off evergreens to prevent breakage, and turn to seed catalogs and next year's planting plans by the fire.
Zone 7a (Middle Tennessee & Nashville Basin): mostly dormant, but the soil rarely stays frozen long. Harvest the hardiest greens under cover on mild days, check mulch on garlic and tender shrubs, prune dormant fruit trees, and plan next year's garden.
Zone 7b (southern Middle & West Tennessee): the mildest gardening in the state. Cold frames and row covers carry collards, kale, spinach, and carrots through the month, and you can still harvest fresh greens for the holidays in the warm west.
What's at the Farmers Market
December markets in Tennessee run on storage crops and cold-hardy greens, with the indoor winter markets in Nashville, Memphis, and Knoxville carrying the holiday table. Sweet potatoes from West Tennessee fields are in full supply from controlled storage, alongside potatoes, winter squash, pumpkins, onions, garlic, turnips, rutabagas, and beets from the root cellar. Cumberland Plateau and East Tennessee storage apples still eat crisp.
The frost-sweetened Southern greens are at their best for the holidays — collards, kale, cabbage, mustard, and turnip greens — and the season's pecans are in. The pantry staples Tennessee farmers make for the cold months fill out the stalls: Appalachian sorghum syrup, local honey, stone-ground grits and cornmeal, country hams, farmstead cheeses, and preserves, along with holiday wreaths, evergreens, and Fraser-fir Christmas trees from the East Tennessee mountains. Choose firm, unblemished sweet potatoes and keep them cool and dry but unrefrigerated, store hard-rinded squash cool and dry, and pick the sweetest, most cold-tightened greens for the table.
Night Sky This Month
December brings the year's longest nights and some of the clearest, coldest skies to Tennessee, and the dark-sky places are at their best. Pickett CCC Memorial State Park and Pogue Creek Canyon, the International Dark Sky Park on the northern Cumberland Plateau, the high Great Smoky Mountains overlooks, and the Bays Mountain Park observatory near Kingsport all reward bundled-up winter viewing. The solstice near December 21 brings the longest night of the year.
The brilliant winter sky takes command. Orion strides up the south, his belt pointing down to dazzling Sirius, the sky's brightest star, with the great Winter Hexagon — Sirius, Procyon, Pollux, Capella, Aldebaran, and Rigel — wheeling around it and the Pleiades riding high. The misty Orion Nebula glows in the sword in binoculars. The Geminid meteor shower, the year's best, peaks around December 14, throwing bright, slow meteors all night from a dark site. The printable Tennessee night-sky guide gives this year's exact Geminid peak, moon phase, planet positions, and dark-sky sites for your region.
Butterflies & Pollinators
December halts Tennessee's butterfly flight, but the fauna is present and waiting, not absent — knowing where it shelters is the winter story. The species that overwinter as adults — mourning cloak, eastern comma, question mark, and red admiral — are tucked deep into their winter quarters behind loose bark, in woodpiles and hollow trees, and inside sheds and barns, their bodies loaded with natural antifreeze. On a rare 60-degree December afternoon in the mild west or the sun-warmed Central Basin glades, a mourning cloak can still be roused to bask briefly on a sunlit trunk before retreating.
Everything else passes the winter hidden in an earlier life stage. The eastern tiger and zebra swallowtails wait as chrysalids camouflaged against twigs, the great spangled fritillary as a tiny unfed caterpillar deep in the leaf litter near its violet hosts, and the skippers, whites, and sulphurs as eggs, larvae, or pupae among the standing stems and fallen leaves. The monarchs are far away in the Mexican fir forests. Leaving the leaf litter, dead stalks, and brush piles undisturbed all winter is the single best thing a Tennessee gardener can do to bring the butterflies back in spring.
What to plant for them is in the Tennessee native plants guide
Trees This Month
December reveals the full architecture of Tennessee's bare deciduous forest while the evergreens hold the color. This is the month to read bark and form: the shaggy strips of shagbark hickory, the smooth gray of American beech still clinging to its bleached marcescent leaves, the broad blocky bark of mature white oak, and the flaking, mottled camouflage trunks of sycamore glowing pale along the rivers.
The conifers define the winter landscape. On the high Great Smoky Mountains summits, the dark red spruce and the southern Appalachian endemic Fraser fir — the prized Christmas tree of the Tennessee mountains — cloak the peaks of Clingmans Dome and Mount LeConte, often rimed in snow. The Central Basin and Ridge-and-Valley carry dense, berry-laden eastern red cedar, the signature tree of the cedar glades, while shortleaf, loblolly, and Virginia pine hold the plateau and Coastal Plain. Along the western rivers and at Reelfoot Lake the bare, russet-barked bald cypress stand leafless over the dark water, their knees poking the surface. Buds are set and dormant on every twig, and the evergreen American holly hangs heavy with red berries against the gray woods as the year closes.
The Tennessee native plants guide covers what grows with them
Weather & Daylight
Across Tennessee, a typical December day averages a high near 50°F and a low near 31°F, with about 5.4 inches of precipitation — statewide averages from the 1991–2020 U.S. climate normals.
Cold, gray, and wet, afternoons hovering near 50 and freezing nights, with some of the year's heaviest rainfall.
| Average high | 50°F |
|---|---|
| Average low | 31°F |
| Precipitation | 5.4 in |
| Sunrise (mid-month) | 6:48 CT |
| Sunset (mid-month) | 16:33 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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Same month elsewhere: December in Texas · December in Utah · December in Vermont