December birthstones are Turquoise and Zircon

How appropriate that Turquoise is one of the December birthstones. From earliest times, Turquoise has been the symbol of friendship and peace in the home. So it’s the perfect stone to represent the holiday season. But it gets better. When given by a loving friend it’s believed the stone will bring good fortune and protect the recipient from negative energies.

The more sensitive among us (my brother Matt, for instance, who owns a beautiful Turquoise ring) point out that Turquoise is one of the oldest stones known to man and as such stores within it great wisdom. Hmmm.

By contrast, Zircon, December’s other birthstone, has a rather checkered past. (I like it already.) The fabulous ‘starlight blue’ Zircon that swept the gemological world in the 1920s was actually not a mined stone at all. Local entrepreneurs in Thailand, unable to sell the not-very-attractive brown Zircon they were digging up, discovered that by heating the stone in an oxygen-free environment they could create startling blue stones with which they then flooded the global market. But when the scheme was uncovered by a Tiffany gemologist—nobody cared! The blue Zircons continued in great demand. In fact, that’s one of the most amazing things about Zircon—it can be heat-treated to take on different colors. It can even go colorless, and do a perfect imitation of a diamond.

But for all its interesting history, why Zircon is a December birthstone I have no idea. Maybe Matt’s ring knows.