On New Year’s Day, we stand with one foot in the old year, one in the new. Like the god Janus, for whom January is named, we simultaneously look behind us and ahead. If the old year blessed us, we say a prayer for continuation of that good fortune. If, instead, the year has left us battered and bruised, we hope and pray for better times. Whichever the case, we frequently make resolutions intended to correct our personal flaws and mistakes.

It’s that last point that frequently lands me in trouble: I like the idea of New Year’s resolutions but keeping them is another thing altogether.

Of the many times I’ve made resolutions for the New Year (and for that matter, during Lent) I’ve often succeeded splendidly in failing. At least twice, I’ve broken my pledges on the same day I made them. Once I wrote out my vow a few days before the calendar change, proud of my early start, and put the paper aside. Two weeks later, I found my words buried beneath a pile of books, bills, and notes, unread and ignored.

One Ash Wednesday I made it my Lenten aim to avoid complaining. About four days into that penitential season, my youngest child, then about 14, asked me what I’d given up. “Complaining,” I said. “I’m tired of other people complaining and hearing myself complain. But I have to tell you, giving up complaining is hard. Sometimes it’s tough to shut myself down. Besides, I don’t even think I complain that much to start with. Anyway, it’s a pain even thinking about it.”

My son burst out laughing. “Aren’t you complaining right now?”

See what I mean? Another resolution up in flames.

Search online for “tips for keeping New Year’s resolutions,” and you find all sorts of advice, most of it quite helpful. Keep it simple. Keep it doable. Don’t make more than two or three resolutions. Team up with someone and have them check on your progress. Remind yourself every day of the resolution. If necessary, post a copy on the refrigerator and the bathroom mirror. When you fall down and break your pledge, don’t give up. Get right back up and start over again.

This rah-rah encouragement always entices me to have one more go at Mount Resolution. I’m like Charlie Brown when Lucy offers to hold the football so he can kick it. He knows she’s going to yank it away at the last second, but her reassurances overpower his good sense. Put me in the company of these well-intentioned resolution tipsters, and like Charlie I’m ready to have another run at that ball—or in my case, another ascent up that mountain.

Now Jan. 1, 2025 is just around the corner, and here I am again, draped with tackle and gear, preparing to begin the climb.

So, here’s the plan. Every week I’ll write a letter apiece to two of my 24 grandchildren, who range in age from one to 20. By year’s end, if I stick to my vow, each grandchild will have received four letters, with four weeks left empty. I’ll use that end of the year bonus time to write notes of good cheer and appreciation to their parents. With stamps, paper, and envelopes on hand, with my grandchildren’s names pegged to a schedule so I keep track and avoid confusion, and with my old friends John and Anne reminding me of my pledge, my plan may just work.

This project offers several benefits. The grandkids, especially the younger ones, will get a kick out of it for the simple reason that children like getting mail. For any of us to receive a personal letter by mail these days is rare, so for them it’s a particularly big deal. It’s also a positive rather than a negative resolution that requires only the effort of putting pen to paper, so for me it should bring more pleasure than pain.

But there’s another motive to my ambition. For the past six years I’ve written several columns for different outlets encouraging grandparents to take a hand in the kids’ education—and I didn’t mean teaching them the times table or learning phonics. The letters will allow room for another opportunity to practice what I’ve preached.

I’ll encourage my grandkids to discover and develop their gifts and talents. I can recommend books to them, and poems that have meant the world to me. I can include a joke or two that will bring either laughter or a groan, and I’ll try to bring good things into that correspondence, the true and beautiful things that make life so much worth the living.

These letters are also one more way for me to become a time machine. At some point in the future, some of these grandkids may remember my words and counsel. They’ll think or speak my name, and for that brief moment I’ll be with them in spirit.   

Worst case scenario, I’ll have some fun playing the garrulous old man, and they’ll have fun opening some letters.

So, here’s a raised glass—a mug of morning coffee—to climbing Mount Resolution, and a Happy New Year to all you Chronicles readers!