December Birth Flowers: Meanings, Symbolism, and Daily Birthday Flowers
The official December birth flowers are narcissus and holly. Narcissus brings elegant, often fragrant blooms and meanings connected with hope, renewal, self-regard, and new beginnings. Holly contributes glossy evergreen leaves and vivid berries, carrying ideas of protection, resilience, goodwill, and enduring life.
The pairing is unusual because only one is a conventional flower in the everyday sense. Holly’s tiny blossoms are easily overlooked; its leaves and berries create the image most people recognize. That makes December’s birth-flower tradition particularly suited to winter, when foliage, fruit, branches, and indoor flowering plants become as important as petals.
AT A GLANCE
Strength, joy, renewal.
The holly for protection and enduring strength.
The narcissus for hope and new beginnings.
Narcissus: December’s Flower of Renewal
Narcissus is a genus of bulb-growing plants that includes daffodils, jonquils, and paperwhites. Their flowers typically have six outer segments surrounding a central cup or trumpet.
For December, paperwhite narcissus is especially relevant because its bulbs are commonly grown indoors for winter flowering. The blooms are usually white, strongly scented, and capable of appearing while the outdoor garden is largely dormant.
Narcissus carries several interpretations, including renewal, hope, self-reflection, and new beginnings. The mythology surrounding Narcissus adds a more cautionary theme of excessive self-absorption. Explore the narcissus birth flower guide.
Holly: The Evergreen December Birth Flower
Holly is recognized by glossy evergreen foliage and bright berries, although leaf shape varies considerably between species. Its actual flowers are small and far less conspicuous than the fruit that follows.
Because holly remains green through winter, it has become connected with resilience, protection, continuity, and enduring life. Its long-standing role in winter decoration strengthened its association with December.
The familiar red berries generally develop on female plants after pollination, so not every holly produces a heavy winter display. Read more in the complete holly birth flower guide.
Birth Flowers for Every Day in December
An older floral tradition assigns a specific bloom to every calendar day. Find your birthday below and the meaning it carries.
december 1
December 1st Birth Flower: Narcissus
Narcissus flowers rise from bulbs with a distinctive central cup surrounded by six outer segments. For December 1st, the flower carries ideas of renewal, hope, reflection, and beginning again.
december 2
December 2nd Birth Flower: Holly
Glossy foliage and bright winter berries make holly recognizable long after its small flowers have disappeared. Its birthday message centers on protection, resilience, goodwill, and life that continues through difficult seasons.
december 3
December 3rd Birth Flower: Lavender
Lavender is best recognized by aromatic foliage and purple flower spikes. Its calming fragrance gives December 3rd a gentle language of peace, devotion, and creating stillness amid a busy season.
december 4
December 4th Birth Flower: Sorrel
Sorrel produces slender flower stalks above leaves better known for their sharp, lemony flavor. Its fresh taste and practical character make energy and useful simplicity fitting themes.
december 5
December 5th Birth Flower: Ambrosia
Ambrosia, commonly associated with ragweed, produces small, inconspicuous flowers rather than ornamental blooms. Its name means “food of the gods” in Greek mythology, creating an unusual contrast with the plant’s modest appearance.
december 6
December 6th Birth Flower: Saxifrage
Saxifrages often grow in rocky crevices and other seemingly restrictive spaces. Their ability to establish themselves where little room is available makes resourcefulness and persistence natural ideas for December 6th.
december 7
December 7th Birth Flower: White Rose
White roses carry a quieter emotional tone than red ones. Sincerity, respect, innocence, remembrance, and peaceful affection are among the meanings most closely connected with them.
december 8
December 8th Birth Flower: Reed
Reeds grow in wet ground and move readily with wind without losing their upright form. That flexibility gives this birthday plant a strong theme of adaptability rather than rigid resistance.
december 9
December 9th Birth Flower: Chrysanthemum
Chrysanthemums offer extraordinary variety, from simple daisy forms to dense, many-petaled heads. For December 9th, they bring meanings of longevity, loyalty, joy, and remembrance, depending on culture and color.
december 10
December 10th Birth Flower: Camellia
Camellias combine glossy evergreen leaves with remarkably precise flowers. Their winter or early-spring flowering in many varieties gives them an air of composure, admiration, and beauty appearing outside the expected season.
december 11
December 11th Birth Flower: Pine
Pines retain needle-like foliage while many neighboring trees stand bare. Their evergreen character has made longevity, endurance, constancy, and continued life enduring parts of their symbolism.
december 12
December 12th Birth Flower: Cotton
Cotton begins with hibiscus-like flowers before developing capsules filled with soft fibers. The transformation from bloom to useful material gives this date a message of potential revealed gradually.
december 13
December 13th Birth Flower: Purple Chrysanthemum
Purple adds a richer, more ceremonial tone to the chrysanthemum. It can suggest dignity, thoughtfulness, longevity, and respect offered with genuine depth.
december 14
December 14th Birth Flower: Pineapple
A pineapple develops from a cluster of individual flowers that merge into one compound fruit. Its unusual structure gives December 14th a fitting theme of abundance created through many parts working together.
december 15
December 15th Birth Flower: Winterberry
Winterberry is a deciduous holly that drops its leaves while retaining clusters of vivid red fruit. The exposed berries become more striking against bare branches, making endurance through change its defining seasonal quality.
december 16
December 16th Birth Flower: Alder
Alders commonly grow near water and improve soil conditions through a relationship with nitrogen-fixing microorganisms. Their ecological role gives this birthday tree a character of support and strength that benefits more than itself.
december 17
December 17th Birth Flower: Cherry Laurel
Cherry laurel is an evergreen shrub with glossy leaves and upright clusters of small white flowers. Its dense year-round growth makes continuity and protection suitable ideas, although the plant contains toxic compounds and should not be treated as edible.
december 18
December 18th Birth Flower: Sage
Sage is valued for aromatic leaves but also produces attractive flower spikes. Its name and long cultural history naturally connect it with wisdom, sound judgment, and knowledge gained through experience.
december 19
December 19th Birth Flower: Snowflake
Snowflake flowers hang as white bells tipped with small green markings. Although often confused with snowdrops, they belong to a different genus and offer their own quiet image of hope and clarity.
december 20
December 20th Birth Flower: Nandina
Nandina, sometimes called heavenly bamboo, is not a true bamboo. Its fine foliage and clusters of red berries provide winter interest, giving the date a sense of transformation and lasting color.
december 21
December 21st Birth Flower: Mint
Mint spreads readily through underground stems and releases its familiar fragrance when the leaves are disturbed. Its freshness makes renewal, hospitality, and energetic persistence natural themes.
december 22
December 22nd Birth Flower: Zinnia
Zinnias produce brightly colored flower heads in an extensive range of forms. Their traditional connection with thoughts of absent friends gives December 22nd a warm note of remembrance across distance.
december 23
December 23rd Birth Flower: Plane Tree
Plane trees are recognized by broad leaves and bark that may peel away in patches to reveal a mottled trunk. Their substantial size and urban toughness make endurance and adaptability suitable interpretations.
december 24
December 24th Birth Flower: Christmas Cactus
Christmas cactus produces colorful flowers from flattened, segmented stems around the winter holiday period under suitable conditions. Its seasonal timing makes patience rewarded by unexpected color an especially fitting message.
december 25
December 25th Birth Flower: Red Rose
The red rose brings one of the calendar’s clearest messages: deep love and wholehearted affection. Its appearance on December 25th adds warmth and emotional intensity to a date already centered on close relationships for many people.
december 26
December 26th Birth Flower: Christmas Rose
The Christmas rose is actually a hellebore rather than a true rose. Its pale winter flowers can emerge in cold conditions, giving it a longstanding connection with hope and quiet resilience.
december 27
December 27th Birth Flower: Japanese Andromeda
Japanese andromeda is an evergreen shrub that produces hanging clusters of small, bell-shaped flowers. Its combination of persistent foliage and delicate bloom gives this date a balance of endurance and refinement.
december 28
December 28th Birth Flower: Pomegranate
Pomegranate flowers are vivid and waxy before developing into fruit packed with seeds. Abundance, continuity, prosperity, and the multiplication of good fortune are natural themes for this birthday plant.
december 29
December 29th Birth Flower: Winter Jasmine
Winter jasmine produces bright yellow flowers on bare green stems, often before spring has properly begun. Its willingness to flower during a sparse season gives December 29th a clear message of optimism.
december 30
December 30th Birth Flower: Wax Plant
Wax plant, or hoya, forms clusters of thick, star-shaped flowers with an almost artificial appearance. Its long-lived growth and recurring blooms make patience and lasting attachment suitable meanings.
december 31
December 31st Birth Flower: Mistletoe
Mistletoe closes the calendar as an evergreen plant growing on the branches of a host tree. Its long history in winter customs has connected it with peace, affection, reconciliation, and continuity at the turning of the year.
All 24 Blooms
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FAQ
Frequently asked
Daffodils belong to the genus Narcissus, so they are narcissus plants. However, the word Narcissus covers a broader group that also includes paperwhites and jonquils.
Paperwhite narcissus bulbs can be grown indoors and encouraged to bloom during winter. Their ability to flower without the same prolonged cold treatment required by many other narcissus types makes them particularly useful for seasonal indoor displays.
Many hollies have male and female flowers on separate plants. A female plant generally needs compatible pollen from a male holly nearby to produce a strong berry crop, although details vary by species and cultivar.
Holly berries should not be treated as edible. They can cause illness if consumed, and branches with berries should be kept away from children and pets likely to eat them.
Evergreen plants become particularly noticeable in winter because they retain foliage while many deciduous plants are bare. Pine, holly, cherry laurel, and other persistent plants naturally suit a month associated with the dormant season.
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