December, the last month of chaotic 2025, was surprisingly pleasant. We had mostly mild temperatures (by Maine winter standards) with several snowfalls that were more picturesque than problematic. Perhaps the highlight of the month was when one of those gentle snowstorms arrived on the day-before-Christmas, which ended that eve with us waiting for Santa by the fire, followed by a sunny white Christmas:
There was a lushness to December’s falling snow and a brilliance in the landscape when the sun came out:
As usual, we include Postcards of the four iconic scenes that we’ve been monitoring for you and posterity: the view of Mount Desert Island’s western mountains from Brooklin’s Amen Ridge; the summer house overlooking Brooklin’s Naskeag Harbor; the near-mountain called Blue Hill in the town of the same name, and the old boathouse in Blue Hill’s Conary Cove:
December’s most memorable furry and spikey fauna included white-tailed deer in their darker winter coats and Harry, our resident porcupine, who came out on sunny days. (Unfortunately, I was unable to get a decent photograph oi Bernie and Bernice, our resident nocturnal American beavers who stay in their burrow on cold days.)
As for the most memorable feathered fauna, that would be our hardy ring-billed and herring seagulls that like to drink the fresh water from melted sea ice and the mallard ducks that huddled with gulls in the open water atop Mill Stream’s icy dam. (And, by the way, December was duck hunting time when boat-blinds were seen being readied to motor out to the islands.)
Winterberry was the most seasonal December flora of the native kind. We also enjoyed flora of the non-native kind in the form of poinsettias. And, perhaps the most important of December “flora” was of the constructed kind, the Brooklin community-created Christmas Trap Tree on the Town Office lawn.
The waterfront always is interesting. In December, boats were still being put into winter storage at the renowned Brooklin Boat Yard and its pier in icy Center Harbor went through several fascinating transformations.
In nearby Naskeag Harbor, the no-nonsense Brooklin Town commercial dock dominated the seascape and fishing vessels were re-rigged from lobster trappers into scallop draggers. The beauty of Maine’s rockbound shore also became more apparent as the tide lowered in Blue Hill’s Conary Cove on a clear December day.
In December’s skies, winter’s colder, clearer air brought us many extraordinary sundowns.
A beautiful waxing gibbous moon rose on several clear December nights. When the moon later became fully illuminated into the month’s traditional “Full Cold Moon ,” it rose through the icy crystals of high-altitude cirrus clouds that ceated a lunar halo:
We hope that all our friends and family enjoyed the December holidays and have a happy new year.
(All the images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during December 2025.)