December 2026 calendar printable — the month that holds ISO week 53

The calendar is below and already on December 2026. Print it as it stands or change the paper, the week start and the holiday layer first. The facts in the text are produced by the same date engine that draws the grid, including the ones about week numbering that most calendars get quietly wrong.

Week 53 exists this year, and it lives in this month

Most years have 52 ISO weeks. Some have 53, and 2026 is one of them: a year is long when it begins on a Thursday, or when it is a leap year beginning on a Wednesday, and January 1 2026 was a Thursday. The extra week is week 53, and it falls here — December spans ISO weeks 49 to 53.

That has a practical edge for anyone whose reporting runs on week numbers. Payroll, retail and manufacturing calendars built around 52 weeks acquire an extra one this year, and it sits at the year end where it is easiest to overlook. Switch the ISO week column on above and week 53 is printed on the grid rather than left to be worked out. The week does not stop at the 31st either: it runs into the first days of January, which is why January 2027 opens inside last year’s final week.

23 weekdays — the most of any month on this site

December 2026 has 31 days, begins on a Tuesday and ends on a Thursday. Because it opens mid-week and closes mid-week, only 8 of those days are Saturdays or Sundays, leaving 23 weekdays — more than any other month with a page here. That is a lot of working days for a month people treat as half a holiday, and the reason a December planning sheet fills up.

The grid itself is undemanding: 5 rows with a Sunday start, 5 with a Monday start, 5 with a Saturday start. All three agree, so no choice of week start costs you cell height this month — print it however you prefer and the boxes stay the same size.

Christmas on a Friday, and a holiday that could have moved

Christmas Day is fixed to December 25, and in 2026 that is Friday, December 25, 2026 — so the federal day off is the date itself, with no shift. Fixed-date holidays are exactly the ones that can move: a Saturday December 25 would be observed on the Friday before, and a Sunday one on the Monday after. This year the rule applies and does nothing, which is worth stating because the grid still marks both fields and a reader should know which case they are looking at.

Around it, Christmas Eve on December 24 and New Year's Eve on December 31 are observances, not federal holidays. Many employers close on both; the federal government does not, and the calendar does not pretend otherwise. They live in the observance layer you can switch off if you want a plain grid.

The solstice, stated as the approximation it is

The December solstice is computed for December 21 at approximately 20:50 UTC. “Approximately” is not hedging for its own sake: the figure comes from a truncated periodic series with a polynomial correction, accurate to roughly a minute, and this site marks any such value as approximate rather than printing it as though it were a train time. In US time zones that instant is the afternoon or evening of the same date, so the calendar and the sky agree here — unlike the September equinox, which lands on the previous day in the Americas.

Printing this month

A 5-row December prints cleanly on portrait Letter or A4 at 100% scale, and with 23 weekdays to fill, three ruled lines per box is usually the right setting rather than two. If you are printing a whole set for the year end, note that January needs six rows with a Sunday start, so its boxes will be shorter than these unless you print both with a Monday start. The printing guide covers the settings that decide whether any of it fits.