Five-hundred twenty-five thousand six-hundred minutes… How do you measure a year? In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee? No. Those are all bad ways to measure a year. Here are some better ones:

In miles? We traveled 1,800 miles to visit Minnesota last Christmas. Apparently Minnesota did not know that we were coming, because they forgot to turn the heat on. In other mile-related news, we took a trip for Gideon’s birthday to a waterpark in northern Oregon that has a real airplane on the roof. (They put it there on purpose. It didn’t just land there and they left it like that. Actually I never asked, so maybe it did.)

In kids puking? There were twelve separate times this year when our kids got sick and threw up. One of those twelve times was BarfFest 2019, when Gideon and Gloria each threw up six times in the same day.

In pounds of clothes? Christina is actively involved with running a clothing warehouse that provides free clothing to foster families, and she has sorted an estimated 15,000 pounds of donated clothing in our garage this year. She also picked up an additional 10,000 pounds of clothing off of our kids’ floors, but that was unrelated to the clothing warehouse.

In steps? My phone’s Steps app tells me that I’ve taken 2.6 million steps this year, but that seems low. Grayson takes at least that many steps each day now that he has learned to walk, and I have to chase after him on days that Christina is out doing good in the community.

In teeth that have been lost? Gloria lost her first tooth the natural way, but then she fell off of the swingset and gave the second one a helping hand.

In DIY projects? I built two beds this year, and the kids are still somehow curled up on our floor every morning. Maybe my next project should be a lock for our bedroom door.

In bees? Weird suggestion, but ok. We’ve started our own apiary and have about 50,000 bees at our command. 50,000 bees seems like a lot of bees, because it is, especially when you walk too close to the hive without your bee suit on. (A “bee suit” is protective gear to protect you from stings, not a human-sized bee costume, although that might be equally effective depending on how realistic it is.)

In baby skunks that we saw? If so, then a year is equal to two widdle baby skunks that are just so cute when they come out at dusk and waddle around our yard together but please don’t decide to live under our porch.

In athletic endeavors? Gabriel and Gideon played YMCA basketball and flag football, and all three of them are learning karate, the Japanese art of barefoot synchronized shouting. Gabriel and Gloria have yellow belts, Gideon has a purple belt, and my belt is black faux-leather with a silver buckle.

In dogs that we welcomed to our family in order to chase squirrels away from our house? That number stands at one, a Goldendoodle named Jupiter. But if we’re measuring the year by how many dogs we have that actually chase squirrels away from our house, the number is closer to zero.

Merry Christmas,

Chris, Christina, Gabriel, Gideon, Gloria, and Grayson Henry