”
Move over a little to the left.
”
”
OK, now you move a little to the center.
”
”
Perfect. Now somebody take the picture.
”
Ah, posing for family pictures. The dressing up, the posing, the
smiling, the gratefulness
– it only happens once a year.
“Move over a little to the left.”
“OK, now you move a little to the center.”
“Perfect. Now somebody take the picture.”
Ah, posing for family pictures. The dressing up, the posing, the smiling, the gratefulness – it only happens once a year.
This year, my husband Chris’ parents’ Christmas picture went hi-tech with the help of our new digital video camera.
While everyone was adjusting themselves and smiling for the virtual birdie last week, I couldn’t help but recall other moments over my lifetime that have been captured on film.
There are the grainy, flickering movies my parents lovingly filmed on their 35-millimeter camera. The clippety-cloppety footage shows my 2-year-old self flinging my Raggedy Anne doll on the floor then riding my red tricycle while my brother sits on our Dad’s knee at my Grandmother’s home in Dayton, Ohio. My mother appears briefly to straighten a dress or collar, smiling and glowing amid her children.
Fast-forward to Thanksgiving 1985, a few weeks before my Grandfather’s death. He had just bought a video camera and chose our family’s holiday get-together as the subject of his first short feature film.
The movie shows my mother pulling a cheesecake out of the oven, explaining how a crack down the middle means it has reached perfection. The picture cuts to my little sister, then 5, bouncing on the sofa and out of the frame.
“Turkey,” she yells when my Grandpa asks her what we’re all about to eat.
At the end of the video, my Grandpa talks quietly to the camera. We would learn later that he was telling us how much he loved us and how lucky he felt to raise such a wonderful family.
A five-minute clip on CNN is also in our family’s film library. The footage shows my 20-year-old self explaining why more women are graduating from college than men. I remember the events leading up to that moment. It was quite by happenstance that I appeared on the news channel one Saturday in October 1993. A senior at the University of San Francisco, I was the editor of my college newspaper. Being the only female “leader” on campus, CNN chose me to discuss why this trend in college graduates was occurring.
I have no idea what I said that foggy afternoon as the camera started rolling, but instead remember fussing over my outfit I had carefully chosen, a pinstriped suit, and wondering how much makeup is too much for television.
Four years later, a family friend captured my wedding to my husband, Chris. The footage shows my dad escorting me up the aisle. I am smiling widely. What the camera doesn’t show is the knots in my stomach and my Dad telling me jokes in a comforting whisper as we walked up the seemingly endless aisle.
The picture fades to black as the camera’s battery dies. But it recovers long enough to capture Chris’ speech to his newly betrothed and our parents, thanking them for setting such loving examples of what a marriage is.
Each clip lasts just an instant in time, but the compilation reflects a family in motion, changing and growing as the years click by.
I know the next movie we film will star our newest addition to the family: our daughter, who is due to be born in three weeks. One day she will view the silly moments and the heartfelt ones captured on film. Perhaps she’ll laugh over our antics, smile at our awkwardness, appreciate our sincerity. But I am certain she will get a better understanding of where she comes from and the people who became her family.
