Before my five boys thundered down the steps on Christmas morning, life’s roaring river slowed long enough for me to take in the moment. The decorated tree carried our memories over the years. The gifts stacked under it were tokens of our love for the young men in our care. The increasing number of stockings reflected our family’s heart. 2025 will be here soon enough, and I’m not going to waste even a moment.

The Christmas silence was oddly deafening. I realized a day will come where the rumbling, tumbling chaos will depart with my sons as they set out to build their own families and lives. I often tell myself that day can’t come soon enough, but I couldn’t wait to watch them literally roll down the stairs to open presents on Christmas morning. I do enjoy the respite of a peaceful moment with my coffee, but I deeply love my pack of wild beasts.

Years ago, my mother gave me some of my childhood ornaments. My theory is that she kept the ones she liked and sent me the ones that look like a crackhead assembled them. The oldest one I could find on our Christmas tree was a multi-layer paper star with a brad placed in the center to hold the ornament together. The idea was that spinning the layers would create different stars. As a two-year-old, I clearly went a little heavy on the Elmer’s glue and glitter. That star hasn’t changed configurations in 40 years, but it always shines like a diamond.

Every year, our tree is loaded with ornaments that mark special occasions, people, and places. Each one helps us recall our family’s history. Some of my favorite ornaments are the ones that have been broken time after time. I noticed a dime-sized hole in a glass hamburger, my youngest son’s favorite food. We’ll repair that one too. My family won’t give up just because an ornament is banged up over time. We treat the people we love the same way.

The wrapped presents weren’t particularly important themselves. Our boys will undoubtedly outgrow, wear out, or simply set aside most of them over time. They matter because they’re one way we show our sons that we care about them. We know who they are and realize how uniquely God has made each of them. Every year, I try to convince my wife that we shouldn’t individually wrap every single item. She remains unmoved. Her intentional inefficiency sends the message that my boys are worth the extra effort. Our children always know our priorities. While we have our sons around, they must know how much we value each of them.

In my home, family is who shows up. Years ago when we became a therapeutic foster family, that motto took on a whole new meaning. On our mantle, we’ve added new stockings for our bonus sons. We’ve also hosted young men who have had encounters with the juvenile justice system and received the dreaded “JJ” label in their files. Some of the boys who have darkened our door were just passing through. Others were convinced that nobody can love them as they’ve moved from one home to another. I’ve watched countless young men struggle through the difficult task of growing up. My goal is to raise men who are mentally, spiritually, and physical fit to serve their families and communities. If you ask me how it’s going at any given moment, you’ll likely get a different answer.

That doesn’t mean we’re not making progress as a family.

My sons know how to do hard things. They know how to work. They fight and holler like wild dogs when they’re with each other, but they will protect our pack with everything they’ve got. If we can just help them survive to adulthood, I’m confident they’ll be the kind of men who, at the very least, have some amazing stories to tell. My bet is they’ll help a lot of people along the way, too.

As we turn the page to another year, I’m hopeful. The lessons my wife and I are trying to teach our boys demand our resilience and tenacity. Like most parents, we’re doing the best we can without an instruction manual. Some mornings, my wife looks at me and says, “We got this.” Depending on the context it ranges from a question to an exclamation. Nevertheless, it encourages me to press on and seize that day. We’ll get to the next one in due time.

All of us get exactly one run through life. Over the holidays, “It’s a Wonderful Life” finds its way into countless American homes. At the movie’s end, Clarence, a guardian angel, gives George Bailey a book with an inscription:

Dear George:

Remember no man is a failure who has friends.

Thanks for the wings!

Love, Clarence

Our relationships with our families and friends are the foundation of a wonderful life. They also require our most precious asset, our time. We can make more money. We can buy new possessions. We cannot create or manufacture even another second in our lives, and we must invest each moment well. It’s taken me years to fully understand that reality. There is no quality time. There is just time. Some of it happens to be quality.

Before we ring in the New Year, take a moment to decide how you’ll invest in your relationships during 2025. The cruel irony is that life affords us no guarantees as to how many years, days, hours, minutes and seconds we’ll enjoy before we’re gone. How much more precious would our time be if we truly understood the finite nature of our existence?

Don’t wait. Don’t watch from the sidelines. Don’t pine for an opportunity to come your way. Above all, don’t wish away the days and people now present for some imagined future.

In my kitchen, we have a painting of a cow with a reminder to “live like somebody left the gate open.” I’m plan on doing just that in 2025, and I hope you do to. Happy New Year!

Smith is a recovering political attorney with five boys, two dogs, a bearded dragon, and an extremely patient wife. He’s a partner in a media company, a business strategy wonk, and a regular on talk radio. Please direct outrage or agreement to [email protected] or @DCameronSmith on X or @davidcameronsmith on Threads.