The first Christmas pictures of 2012 fall a little early, since Christmas comes on a Tuesday this year and I have to work the rest of the week. So we traveled to Mom and Dad's for the weekend to have a more leisurely celebration and so I could achieve my goals of getting dad making the applesauce on video as well as the group singing a few Christmas songs.
This week I've also been working on transferring the old VHS tape of my high school prom over to DVD and then into uploadable format. As we were watching the video play while the disk recorded, Nick and Sam were laughing at our 80s-ness and our dancing. Then Ricky was on film, and Nick said, "Hey, someone who actually has moves!" So I posted that little clip to Ricky's page this week with a note. He replied, "Thanks Tori for posting. Great memories and I didn't really keep much from back then. I appreciate you putting these things together." I'd also put a seven second clip on Christina's wall, who had watched one of the dance videos and remarked that she was nowhere in it and guessed she hadn't been filmed at all, how she remembered her pretty dress so well but didn't have any video of herself at that age. When I put that little moment on her wall, she wrote, "Gee--thanks so much Tori, that was very thoughtful of you--how fun to see myself 18 years old again!--and you know what---I bet I can still wear that dress!---25 years later!"
And so it goes.
I didn't take that film, and feel lucky that Michelle had bought and kept a copy and was willing to send it to me when I asked. But I've always been the one to bring the camera, and if I've learned anything over the years, it's that, while most people groan and put up with my record-keeping begrudgingly, it pays off exponentially in smiles and warm memories down the road. People are often uncomfortable with their present selves. They don't want their picture taken, now. But now always slips away and becomes then. And then is always different.
So my kids, well-trained in Mom's obsessive need to record, play along and good-naturedly rib me about filming mundane things. But for the first time this year, I caught them watching and laughing at film of when they were little. And so it goes.
Christmas 2012, Part 1
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