import json
from collections import Counter

# Opening JSON file with 'r' flag:
with open("birthdays.json", "r") as f:
    birthdays = json.load(f)

# create first list to pull out values and store them as list items:
bdayList = (entry['birthday'] for entry in birthdays['people'])

# create bdayList2 to extract dates and store them in a separate list
bdayList2 = (date.split(" ")[0] for date in bdayList)

# use Counter module as variable 'c':
c = Counter(bdayList2)

# creating a tuple of all months to loop through later:
months = ('January', 'February', 'March', 'April', 'May', 'June',
          'July', 'August', 'September', 'October', 'November', 'December')

# for loop to print the number of birthdays available in order:
for month in months:
    print("{} = {}".format(month, c[month]))