The details go first.I built Decembers to save them.

When my father died, I realized how much of him I never asked about. He served as an officer on a ship during Vietnam, and I never asked him what that was like. I knew the outline of his life. I didn’t know the details, and the details were the good part.

I’d already had a reminder that time isn’t guaranteed. I had cancer at 34. And earlier this year, I was in a car accident with my daughter. Everyone walked away, but it stayed with me. Someday she’ll want to know the details of my life, the same way I wanted to know my dad’s.

What your father was like before he was your father.

Most families keep the outline: the dates, the towns, the jobs. What disappears is the texture. The car you saved two years for. The song on the radio. What your father was like before he was your father.

The usual fix is a memoir, or a box of unlabeled photos. Both feel like homework, so they wait for a “someday” that keeps moving. Decembers works the other way. One list, a few memories, twenty minutes on an ordinary evening. Your answers build into a Timeline of your life (see a sample), private until you choose who gets to see it. And once you start a list, it’s genuinely fun to keep going. That part surprised me.

It’s also why one of our first lists asks about the deployments and tours you served. That’s a story too many families never get to hear.

P.S. Why “Decembers”? December is when we all naturally look back. You get one every year. Decembers is what you do with them.