This year Mom spread the Christmas cheer further than usual. |
Buttercup was so excited by all the Christmas cheer... |
It wasn't enough to get a tree this year - we had to get a reindeer too! |
Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning... Blue sky at night... day. (Dad thinks he's so funny...) |
Some people are so talented... others of us just benefit from those talents... |
We couldn't see the big event because of bad weather... a couple days later Dad tried to get a picture, but... |
Mom thinks she picked a tree too quickly, but I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love. |
Dad trying to take some art shots this month... |
Christmas morning! Dad messing with Lightroom... |
We didn't have a Christmas card this year - Dad tried to make up a couple options for the web site... |
This is the "old timey" card option... |
Mom didn't want to wear her ugly sweater and join the party! |
Sure, he could have combined these, but this way you get to see them one at a time... |
Don't ask... The Crosby-Schmidts thought this was a good gift... Dad can put it on his bike handlebars! |
Didn't Dad do a great job letting Mom pick out her own present! |
This year I decided it was finally time to not hang these in a prominent place on the Christmas tree... |
A little blurry, but Dad was trying to get a picture of the kiwi from across the room... |
I don't know why he thought he needed to include this one too... |
There is only one lightbulb in that box - now the garage lights up like you wouldn't believe (just don't look directly at the sun...) |
Once again, Dad took a great picture of Mom hiding behind her present! |
Dad managed to squeeze three gifts into one picture even without the collage... |
My impression of the squirrel could have been better... |
Dad can't wait for me to use my new sushi kit! |
It is. Even through everything 2020 threw at us. |
Though Hawaii is supposed to be the land of rainbows, we get a lot of them in Oregon too. |
This is just Dad playing with the macro lens on his new phone... |
This year you don't get a Christmas collage... You get a bunch of separate pictures! That way it looks like more happened this month!
Of course, what isn't happening this month is our trip to Times Square for New Year's Eve. And, "Why?" you ask. "Is this another lost opportunity due to Covid-19?" you cry in despair. Hold on there little buckaroo... Don't get so worked up. We're not going to Times Square for New Year's Eve because you would have to be crazy to want to be packed into an enormous crowd in freezing and/or wet weather just to watch a gigantic lit "ball" drop. We can do that from the comfort of our couch... and if I can find a live stream, we can do it at the much more reasonable hour of 9pm! Do I know how to party, or what?!
Besides, getting all excited about an arbitrary date on an arbitrary calendar isn't very inclusive. What about all the Hindu, Chinese, Coptic, Jewish, and Islamic people who aren't celebrating a new year on January 1st?
Still, a lot of people are looking forward to getting rid of 2020, and apparently the whole planet couldn't wait for that... 2020 had the 28 shortest days on record. Think back to July 5, 2005 - you'll likely remember thinking to yourself, "Today feels like it just flew by!" because that day was only 86399998.9484 milliseconds long (a full 0.0000012% shorter than average!) But, while 2020 seemed to go on forever, it actually had 28 days even shorter than that, including July 19th which was only 86399998.5398 milliseconds long which is clearly massively shorter! I mean, just think, a beam of light could travel more than 76 miles in that time!
Of course, not every day in 2020 was shorter than average. Some were longer than average, but 2021 is projected to be shorter than average over all, shortening the whole year by almost 19 milliseconds which would let a beam of light actually cross the entire United States...
And while we're on the subject of ridiculous time constructs - is midnight AM or PM? And what date is it? Clearly 11:59:59PM on 12/31 is just before the new year and 12:00:01AM on 1/1 is just after the start of the new year, but what is 12:00:00 exactly? Is it still PM? If not, when exactly did it become AM? Is it still 12/31? If not, when exactly did it become 1/1? Surely these are important questions...
And one last time conundrum for you... Did the 20s start on 1/1/2020, or do they start on 1/1/2021? You are probably confidently answering, "They started on 1/1/2020, of course." But, when did the 21st century begin - 1/1/2000 or 1/1/2001? If you are now smugly thinking, "1/1/2000, of course!" then you would be entirely wrong. There was no year 0, so the first century began in year 1 and thus the 21st century (and the 2nd millenium for that matter) did not start until 2001.
Happy New Year - at least 2020 is done now...