December's Sentences

Hello! Welcome to December’s sentences. A friend asked a few days ago, in the context of thinking about New Year’s intentions, if I planned to keep going with this project, and I responded with an enthusiastic “yes.” In an effort to embrace my other New Year’s intention of reaching toward a more analog life, I am going to write the 2026 sentences by hand and then transcribe them here.

Thanks, as always, for reading! I’d love to know what you think.

12.1.25: A spark of tear flicks my eyes as I read to the boy about a bird that must migrate away from its cyborg mother, and he reassures me that real geese don’t have robot parents.

12.2.25: Sights that cause the puppy to stop and gaze: a boy peeing into a dry irrigation ditch as the school bus lumbers away, a buck unfolding itself from a snowy slumber, and snowflakes streaming through the streetlight.

12.3.25: A swarm of children greet me at the entry to the daycare room as I bend to pick up my own, and there’s a chorus of toddler voices saying “my mommy’s coming, my mommy’s coming too” like a bunch of rescue puppies.

12.4.25: The puppy got high centered atop a collie mix during a snowy morning tussle at the park.

12.5.25: The streetlights illuminate the children’s faces (eyes cast to the sky to behold snowflakes and Santa in a bucket truck) and the adults’ (harried while trying to keep hold of a wad of mittens).

12.6.25: A kaleidoscope of beauty and sadness is delivered in the form of driving snow, news about a baby’s arrival, and the ache of departed people and canines.

12.7.25: A mere forty five seconds into a two-hour ballet production, the boy loudly whispers to me “what are they dancing for?”

12.8.25: While slurping cereal into his mouth and asking for a cup of milk, the boy suggests adding more lights and ornaments to the upper reaches of the tree.

12.9.25: In a flurry of a make-believe monster battle, the toddler actually bites the boy’s leg, but the boy ends up comforting her in the resulting puddle of shame.

12.10.25: I am but a squirrel seizing the opportunities provided by unseasonal bare ground as I pack up to exit the coffee shop and shove a half-eaten chocolate-chip cookie into my wool pocket.

12.11.25: I’ve only slurped down three sips of coffee when I stumble to the witness stand to endure a surgical cross examination by the boy about the mechanics of Santa Claus.

12.12.25: The boy and his grandma are nestled into the couch, and the boy flips through the mammal field guide, lingering on the page with the pika with brimming cheeks.

12.13.25: The boy’s cheeks are burnished by fever and leftover holiday-party face paint.

12.14.25: The evening’s arrival spills differing degrees of darkness over the writing group’s virtual meeting—each face suspended in shadow in a small Zoom box.

12.15.25: I slip three green candles onto the table, and the tapers look like nervous tourists in a bustling urban core amidst a scattered sea of crayons and markers.

12.16.25: The delight of a new-to-me album accompanies the sea of headlights on the drive to the pharmacy—a lyrical prequel to the subsequent battle of wills with the boy over taking amoxicillin.

12.17.25: A grumble of wind spooks the puppy who has never seen a winter.

12.18.25: The day’s attempt to convince the boy to drink his medicine necessitated new tools: a stopwatch and a straw.

12.19.25: My lips plant gently on the slumbering boy’s forehead, and the touch causes him to wave a hand as if swatting a mosquito.

12.20.25: The party to honor the Solstice progressed merrily with the smell of pickled herring lingering on my fingers and children racing around with shoes untied to snag more handfuls of sweet treats.

12.21.25: The boy’s hand rested on mine to light the evening candles.

12.22.25: The boy delivers an evening dagger when he accuses me of being “just another rushing adult” after we had discussed that morning his observation that most cars don’t seem to abide the speed limit.

12.23.25: The guys outside the moving company hunker down on the stoop next to a box of Modelo with a shave of crescent moon already visible in the southern sky.

12.24.25: The boy kneels on the kitchen floor in between the outstretched legs of the other boy—now an adult home from college—to talk about football.

12.25.25: The boy asks why my voice sounds sad when I come back inside to report that it is raining.

12.26.25: The day brings the unboxing of new toys and the related excavation of layers of exhaustion and deposits of cardboard.

12.27.25: The puppy quickly nabbed the cleanly hewn strip of kindling.

12.28.25: A crispy cottonwood leaf is nestled in the gnarled topography of the tree’s bark, and I examine its dun color as the toddler counts down to find me.

12.29.25: The boy reassured me that the tale about a robot and her goose baby “turns out okay.”

12.30.25: I light a candle in the shape of a pinecone to accompany the pre-dawn round of Chutes and Ladders.

12.31.25: Friends toast with a honey-colored cocktail as the sun starts to droop behind the high peaks.