Frosty July? Sweaty February? Christmassy December? Hera Lindsay Bird decides which is best.

Like our people and our toilets, here in the southern hemisphere, our seasons are notoriously backwards. 

Scouring through the canon of month-based literature from the lesser hemisphere and applying it to our own required running many taxing mental conversions. Here in the antipodes, we don’t make hay in May, preferring to wait until November, or according to Lifestyle Block NZ, December. Our so-called “November Rain” is most likely to fall in May. And when Robert Frost beseeched October to “retard the sun with gentle mist,” antipodean readers should mentally sub in April. 

In ranking the months I chose to focus not just on their weather, which is an important factor, but also their historical context, their proximity to public holidays, and above all, their vibes. 

So without further ago, the months of the year, ranked from worst to best: 

Last equal: June and July

In the northern hemisphere, winter comes with various perks and mitigating factors. Sure, the days might be short and the temperatures brutal, but at least they have a little festive consumerism to look forward to. 

Anyone who’s experienced a midyear winter will understand intuitively why the pagans made such a big deal of the solstice. It was a cunning psychological gambit to take the edge off the encroaching hunger and darkness. 

Not so in the southern hemisphere. Here, winter arrives like a great icy pothole in the centre of the year. In the northern hemisphere, by the time you get to winter, at least you feel as if you’re making a little narrative progress. The end of the year is just around the corner. But here in Aotearoa, we’re simply expected to “rawdog” winter, like a man on a 12-hour flight. 

To make matters worse, June and July both start with the letter J. If we can’t have a few carols to take the edge off, couldn’t we at least have a little phonic disambiguation? It’s like Anna Karenina all over again. I always get June and July confused, and end up booking calendar appointments for the wrong month. 

My suggestion is to merge these two months into a megamonth, like a seasonal form of debt consolidation, and call the entire, freezing 61-day period JULE. Sure, it would be miserable while it was happening. But just think of the relief when it was finally over! 

10. September

When I first started this list, September was much higher up the rankings. After all, it’s the first month of spring, a meteorological milestone which ought to be celebrated. But the more I looked into September, the more I began to realise that September is a bad month with cursed vibes. 

September directly oversaw the start of the second world war. September was to blame for the Great Fire of London, and the World of Wearable Arts festival. And although here in the antipodes, our 9/11 falls in early November, you can’t go past September without mentioning the most iconic act of terrorism of the 21st century. 

It’s been statistically proven that the beginning of spring is the deadliest season for relationships, compounded in the southern hemisphere by the looming presence of Christmas and the New Year. September is a month of mass casualties, both romantic and otherwise. To quote the immortal words of Billie Joe Armstrong, wake me up when September ends. 

9. April

When T. S. Eliot said that April is the cruellest month, he probably wasn’t referring to the birth of Hitler, the death of Jesus, or even the sinking of the Titanic. But even in Aotearoa, where April represents the middle of autumn, April is no joke, even though it begins with one. 

While March technically marks the death knell of summer, the weather doesn’t really start to turn until April, when daylight savings strikes and the long summer evenings are ruthlessly cut short, like a crumbling healthcare system under an austerity budget. 

April means the end of the financial year has just passed. According to Shakespeare, April “hath put a spirit of youth in everything.” But although Shakespeare was a freelancer, he probably wouldn’t have been so cheerful if he had to spend the entire month of April working on his tax return. 

The only redeeming feature of April is the death and resurrection of Jesus. He died for our sins and then shrugged off his boulder to give us two full days of public holidays. At least, the holidays usually fall in April. But even that isn’t a given. 

8. November

November. The worst of the months ending with “ember”. 

Whenever I think of November, I think of the brilliant Tony Hoagland poem, Reasons To Survive November. But not everyone is so lucky. John F Kennedy didn’t survive November. Nor did Thatcher or the Berlin Wall. 

November is a season of unfinished business. Everyone spends November in a panic, catching up on all their missed deadlines, coordinating last-minute holiday plans and worrying about the year to come. It’s an expensive, high-cortisol month, and the best thing to do is knuckle down and wait for it to be over.

7. March

March is a mixed bag. You can still feel the lingering presence of the sun, but there’s a feeling of looming dread, like being poised at the top of a rollercoaster, waiting to take the plunge down the seasonal abyss. 

Historically, March is something of a filler month. Sure, you can find a handful of important events. The death of Stalin. The first recorded case of the Spanish Flu. The birth of John Donne. But there’s a lot of dead air. Of course, you can’t go past March without mentioning the Ides, and the death of Julius Caesar. But as the Encyclopedia Britannica says, “there’s probably no reason to beware March’s Ides more than the Ides of any other month.” 

6. May

I don’t have any strong feelings about May. It’s one of the most calendrically forgettable months of the year. Like any arbitrary division of time into numerically even segments, there are good and bad qualities. May gives us International Workers’ Day, Cinco de Mayo, and the birthdays of Machiavelli and Homer Simpson. 

Perhaps the kindest thing that can be said about May is that it separates April from June. A dull but necessary addition to the calendar.

5. October

Otherwise known as “Wario April”, October is a jewel in the crown of spring. 

It was, as its name suggests, once the eighth month of the year, but over time has risen with inflation. October is probably most famous for Halloween, which I’m wary of mentioning because here in New Zealand we proudly repudiate the creeping Americanisation of everything except our entire political system.  But there’s no denying it’s a good month for horror movie releases. 

It’s also a historically fascinating month. October saw the arrival of the Black Death, the Battle of Hastings, the Battle of Trafalgar, the birth of Nietzche and Black Monday. Marie Antionette was beheaded. Al Capone went to jail for tax evasion. It brought us the Nuremberg trials; the shipwreck of the SS Wairarapa. And who could forget the October Revolution? 

Good or bad, October is one of the most prestigious and important months of the year, and ought to be treated with the deference and respect it deserves. 

4. February

All right. Now we’re cooking. Perhaps it’s unfair to rank all the summer months at the top of the list, but you have to give credit where credit is due. February, perhaps the most meteorologically pleasant of the months, narrowly misses out on the medal table, because it lacks the psychological heft of December and January. 

It also loses points for its difficult spelling, the presence of Valentine’s Day, and for being the only month in which we’re not guaranteed a full moon. But it gains a few points back for being one of the most numerically avant-garde months of the year. February is a maverick. A shape-shifter. An iconoclast. You will always be famous, February. 

3. January

January. Named after Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings and transitions.  

In America, January is well known for being the face of National Codependency Awareness Month, California Dried Plum Digestive Health Month, International Fetish Month, National Soup Month and World Leprosy Day. Over here, we just like it for the weather. 

The temperature isn’t quite as good as February, but the narrative potential of a fresh, unblemished year and the generous smattering of public holidays is enough to take January straight to the top of the charts. 

2. August

When I started out writing this list, I was planning to put August dead last. But I have to admit, August has been growing on me. 

For a start, the rapid acceleration of climate change means that this month has seen both the arrival of snow and the first bloom of daffodils. This year, August gave us the Olympics. It oversaw the return of the Premier League. Sure, August has made some mistakes. The bombing of Hiroshima is not to be celebrated, nor are the untimely deaths of Marilyn Munroe, John Keats or Princess Diana. But what August takes away, it returns fourfold. 

Ultimately I think August is the second-best month of the year for the same reason that Friday is the second-best day of the week: spring and therefore summer is right around the corner. 

TGIA, everyone. 

1. December

December! The king of months. The grandfather of the calendar. The literal GOAT. And I’m not just saying that because it’s my birthday. 

Christmas. Hanukkah. The summer solstice. New Year’s Eve. I will admit that when you work in retail, December can be a pain in the ass. But even wrapping a hundred copies of the new David Walliams isn’t enough to dampen my spirits. 

Not only does December usher in the beginning of summer and the promise of a new year, it comes jam-packed with mandatory annual leave entitlements, public holidays and small edible gifts. In the immortal words of Tiny Tim, God bless us, every one!