Word-Wednesday for December 31, 2025

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for December 31, 2025, the twenty-ninth Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of winter, the fifth Wednesday of December, and the three-hundred sixty-fifth day of the year, with zero days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for December 31, 2025
Otawage-gookooko'oo
It's that time of year — the great horned owls, Bubo virginianus — now begin their duets as mated pairs set up nesting territories in forest areas. Beware all non-hibernating mammals, including smaller pets. The great horned owl is one of the earliest nesting birds in North America, often laying eggs weeks or even months before other raptorial birds. This species' eyebrow-like "horns" are tufts of feathers, called plumicorns. The great horned owl's song is normally a low-pitched but loud ho-ho-hoo hoo hoo (or also transcribed as bu-bubu booh, who-hoo-ho-oo or who-ho-o-o, whoo-hoo-o-o, whoo) and can last for four or five syllables. Calling seems to peak after rather than before midnight. According to Frederick Milton Baumgartner, on occasion, this species exhibits "an indescribable assemblage of hoots, chuckles, screeches, and squawks, given so rapidly and disconnectedly that the effect is both startling and amusing". Descriptions of some of these odd sounds including a growling krrooo-ooo note pair, a laughing whar, whah, wha-a-a-a-ah, a high-pitched ank, ank, ank; a weak, soft erk, erk, a cat-like meee-owwwwww, a hawk-like note of ke-yah, ke-yah, and a nighthawk-like peent.

December 31 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


December 31 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for December 31, 2025
Sunrise: 8:17am; Sunset: 4:36m; 57 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 1:31pm; Moonset: 5:31am, waxing gibbous, 85% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for December 31, 2025
                Average            Record              Today
High             13                     39                      3
Low             -5                    -42                   =10

The Year
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times? 

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know. 

We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night. 

We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings. 

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead. 

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of a year.

December 31 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Champagne Day
• Make Up Your Own Mind Day
• Leap Second Time Adjustment Day
• No Interruptions Day
• The Seventh Day of Christmas

December 31 Word Pun
Sven dropped his copy of Oliver Twist on his toe.

It hurt like the Dickens.


December 31 Word Riddle
What do you call a three-year-old who doesn’t believe in Santa?*

December 31 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
HEAD-MONEY, n., A capitation tax, or poll-tax.

    In ancient times there lived a king
    Whose tax-collectors could not wring
    From all his subjects gold enough
    To make the royal way less rough.
    For pleasure's highway, like the dames
    Whose premises adjoin it, claims
    Perpetual repairing. So
    The tax-collectors in a row
    Appeared before the throne to pray
    Their master to devise some way
    To swell the revenue. "So great,"
    Said they, "are the demands of state
    A tithe of all that we collect
    Will scarcely meet them. Pray reflect:
    How, if one-tenth we must resign,
    Can we exist on t'other nine?"
    The monarch asked them in reply:
    "Has it occurred to you to try
    The advantage of economy?"
    "It has," the spokesman said: "we sold
    All of our gay garrotes of gold;
    With plated-ware we now compress
    The necks of those whom we assess.
    Plain iron forceps we employ
    To mitigate the miser's joy
    Who hoards, with greed that never tires,
    That which your Majesty requires."
    Deep lines of thought were seen to plow
    Their way across the royal brow.
    "Your state is desperate, no question;
    Pray favor me with a suggestion."
    "O King of Rumps,” the spokesman said,
    "If you'll impose upon each head
    A tax, the augmented revenue
    We'll cheerfully divide with you."
    As flashes of the orange sun illume
    The parted storm-cloud's sullen gloom,
    The king smiled grimly. "I decree
    That it be so—and, not to be
    In generosity outdone,
    Declare you, each and every one,
    Exempted from the operation
    Of this new law of capitation.
    But lest the people censure me
    Because they're bound and you are free,
    'Twere well some clever scheme were laid
    By you this poll-tax to evade.
    I'll leave you now while you confer
    With my most trusted minister."
    The monarch from the throne-room walked
    And straightway in among them stalked
    A silent man, with brow concealed,
    Bare-armed—his gleaming axe revealed!
                                    —G.J.


December 31 Etymology Word of the Week
auld lang syne
/ôl(d) ˌlaNG ˈzīn/ n., SCOTTISH, times long past, popularized by Robert Burns in a pram of the same name, who compiled the pram adapted from several traditional Scottish folk songs and prams.


Auld Lang Syne
by Robert Burns

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

     Chorus:

For auld lang syne, my dear,
     For auld lang syne.
     We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
     For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint stowp!
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

     Chorus

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
Sin’ auld lang syne.

     Chorus

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin’ auld lang syne.

     Chorus

And there’s a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.

     Chorus

December 31 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1695 A window tax is imposed in England, causing many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid the tax.
• 1744 English astronomer James Bradley announces the discovery of Earth's nutation, or wobble.
• 1759 Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
• 1790 Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today, is published for the first time.
• 1911 Marie Curie receives her second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, for her work with radioactivity.
• 2009 Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur.

December 31 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1573 Giulio Cesare Monteverdi, Italian organist and composer.
• 1724 Franz Joseph Oehlschlagel, Czech organist and composer.
• 1799 Thomas Taglichsbeck, German violinist and composer.
• 1805 Marie d'Agoult (Daniel Stern), French author.
• 1826 Henry Hiles, English composer.
• 1741 Gottfried August Bürger, German poet.
• 1830 Alexander Smith, Scottish poet.
• 1846 Richard Kleinmichel, German pianist, composer.
• 1855 Giovanni Pascoli, Italian classicist & poet.
• 1859 Max Fiedler, German conductor and composer.
• 1863 Alfredo Panzini, Italian author.
• 1869 Henri Matisse, French painter.
• 1874 Ernest Austin, English composer.
• 1877 Lawrence Beesley, English journalist and author.
• 1877 Viktor Dyk, Czech poet.
• 1878 Horacio Quiroga, Uruguayan playwright, poet, and short story writer.
• 1881 Jacob Israël de Haan, Dutch poet/writer.
• 1881 Max Pechstein, German "entartet" painter and graphic artist.
• 1894 Ernest John Moeran, English composer.
• 1899 Silvestre Revueltas, Mexican composer.
• 1902 Lionel Daunais, Quebec singer and composer.
• 1905 Tadeusz Breza, Polish writer.
• 1908 Marko Rothmuller, Croatian composer.
• 1911 Dal Stivens, Australian novelist.
• 1912 Micheál de Búrca, Irish artist.
• 1925 Sri Lal Sukla, Indian author.
• 1925 Daphne Oram, British composer.
• 1926 Voldemort.
• 1927 Dieter Noll, German writer.
• 1928 Siné [Maurice Sinet], French cartoonist.
• 1928 Veijo Meri, Finnish writer.
• 1931 Bob Shaw, Northern Irish science fiction author.
• 1931 June Levine, Irish novelist.
• 1931 Gil Mellé, American jazz saxophonist and composer.
• 1933 Chryssa [Vardea-Mavromichali], Greek-American artist.
• 1933 Edward Bunker, American Crime novelist.
• 1935 Rolf Haufs, German writer.
• 1937 Nicolas Born, German writer.
• 1943 Nick Hedges, British photographer.
• 1945 Connie Willis, American science fiction and fantasy author.
• 1946 Lyudmila Pakhomova, Russian ice dancer.
• 1949 Susan Shwartz, American author.
• 1954 Sylvie Bodorová, Czech contemporary classical composer.
• 1962 Jennifer Higdon, American composer.
• 1965 Nicholas Sparks, American author.
• 1968 Junot Díaz, Dominican-American writer.
• 1974 Joe Abercrombie, English author.

Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge 
Write a story or pram from the following words:

• bovate: /BOH-vayt/ n., a measure of land area equal to one eighth of a carucate; an oxgang.
• croust: /krowst/ n., a quick light meal or snack.
• deskfast: n., /DESK-fuhst/ breakfast eaten at work, typically at a desk in an office.
• diolch: /DEE-ahlkh/ exclam., WELSH, thank you.
• hackmatack: /HAK-mə-tak/ n., any of a number of North American coniferous trees, in particular the tamarack.
• jannock: /JAN-uk/ adj., honest; straightforward, fair and generous.
• obvolute: /OB-vuh-loot/ adj., overlapping; contorted; twisted; convolute.
• ramraketting: /ram-RAK-et-ting/ n., Christmas gambols; v., running or jumping about.
• rundled: /RUN-duhld/ adj., round; circular.
• spraint: /spraynt/ n., otter poop.

December 31, 2025 Word-Wednesday Feature
Famous Poetic Last Words
Back in 2020, Word-Wednesday explored the famous last words of some novelists; today we explore the last words in final lines by poets. Novel derives from the Italian word novella — news; poetry derives from the Greek poesis — making. Whether you prefer long fictional narrative or encapsulated metaphor, each form uses point-of-view, linguistic rhythms and sounds, symbolism, and structure to convey meaning. What could be more challenging than writing the final lines of Moby Dick or Madame Bovary or The Color Purple or Crime and Punishment or War and Peace? Perhaps summarizing the world of a single poetic metaphor poses the greater challenge.

As you contemplate the last words of your own 2025 novel or pram, consider the final lines of the prams that follow, where clicking on the pram title will take you to the full pram, should you wish to see more context behind those last words...


Love After Love
by Derek Walcott

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Lady Lazarus
by Sylvia Plath

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

Love in the Asylum
by Dylan Thomas

And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last
I may without fail
Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars.

Venus and the Rain
by Medbh McGuckian

A sun for sun, those cruising moonships find
Those icy domes relaxing, when they take her
Rind to pieces, and a waterfall
Unstitching itself down the stairs.

The Man With Night Sweats
by Thom Gunn

Hugging my body to me
As if to shield it from
The pains that will go through me,
As if hands were enough
To hold an avalanche off

kitchenette building
by Gwendolyn Brooks

We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!
Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,
We think of the lukewarm water, hope to get in it.

The Rain Ballad
by Srijato 

…way back, someone way back
halts in that scene –
A lone road, a bit of rain, and a drenched guitar.

About His Person
by Simon Armitage

No gold or silver,
but crowning one finger

a ring of white unweathered skin.
That was everything.

An End
by Christina Rossetti

Love, strong as Death, is dead.
Come, let us make his bed
Among the dying flowers:
A green turf at his head;
And a stone at his feet,
Whereon we may sit
In the quiet evening hours …

Mid-Term Break
by Seamus Heaney

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four-foot box, a foot for every year.

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
by John Donne

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

Death
by W.B. Yeats

Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all …

The World's End
by William Empson

On cushioned air what is such metal worth 
To pierce to the gulf that lies so snugly curled? 

Each tangent plain touches one top of earth, 

Each point in one direction ends the world. 

Apple of knowledge and forgetful mere 
From Tantalus too differential bend.‘ 

The shadow clings. The world's end is here. 

This place's curvature precludes its end.

Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost

I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

The Second Coming
by W.B. Yeats

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The Hollow Men
by T.S. Eliot

 For Thine is
    Life is
    For Thine is the
   
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper.

The End
by Mark Strand

Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus
And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight,
Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing
When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end.

This World Is Not Conclusion
by Emily Dickinson

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond –
Invisible, as Music –
But positive, as Sound …

From A Year with Rilke, December 31 Entry
Flower of Farewell, from Uncollected Prams

Somewhere the flower of farewell is blooming.
Endlessly it yields its pollen, which we breathe.
Even in the breeze of this beginning hour we breathe farewell.

Bee
by William Morris

Be better than yesterday, 
learn a new word today, 
try to stay out of trouble — at least until tomorrow, 
and write when you have the time.






*A rebel without a Claus.