On the Sixth Day of a Feminine Christmas
The old-fashioned image above reminds me so much of my latest downtime pastime. Like the homey scene behind our caroler, I love peeking through the windows of another time at some of YouTube’s Christmas home videos.
There seem to be so many these days and there are even some where you can follow an entire family for years, watching their Christmases unfold, seeing children grow, and catching the addition of new family members. My favorite era is the 1950’s where the mothers wear Christmas aprons tied around their waists and every tree is draped in tinsel. And if the family is opening presents, all the better. Usually there is no sound but some up-loaders have included festive music and text to accompany their movies. Bonus points for rare images of fathers, who were usually behind the cameras. Gold stars for spotting grandfathers asleep in chairs…
Christmas home movies are tender…it’s sad to realize that so many of the participants are long-gone. But it’s also gladdening to know that there are many traditions still holding steady today – bouncing babies on grandmother’s lap, little boys tearing through wrappings to reveal boxes of trains and little girls cuddling their frilly new dolls.
There is a dream-like quality to these movies and I wonder at how different yet the same they seem. Like me, they hold Christmas tight as the greatest of family celebrations. It is a deeply-felt honor to have the opportunity to place my tiny foothold into these lovely past lives.
There are plenty of wonderful Christmas movies to watch as we wrap our presents to be placed under our un-tinseled trees. But I urge you to go back in time for a while and visit with these endearing families that you have never met yet somehow know…
2 Comments
Dana
I did not know there is such a thing on YouTube. Now I’m off the watch old fashioned holiday home movies. My tree is always quite simple with white lights and sentimental ornaments but there is something so lovely about an overly decorated tree dripping in tinsel!
Karen
It is beautiful isn’t it to get a glimpse at these long ago days? My mother and father took their job as Christmas Elves very seriously and our tree looked very much like the one in your closing image–dripping with tinsel, sparkling with lights, and surrounded by a moat of presents! I wonder if the family in that image has twin girls? I see two dolls, two pianos, two tricycles! What a sweet and generous mommy and daddy they had!