Christmas memories

1978

1979


One of the items we received from my parents this Christmas was a USB flash drive loaded with pictures of family Christmases starting back in 1952. My dad used to take a lot of slides and has started to convert them to digital format. It was great to look back and relive the memories and watch how things and people changed over the years.

Sandy, Greg and I had started to watch it the day after Christmas but decided to wait until Jason got back yesterday. Last night we stayed up until after midnight looking at the pictures. Some brought up interesting discussions on family history. Others brought back memories of long forgotten gifts and moments. It was also fun to see when certain items of decoration first appeared and how the various houses we lived in were decorated. Anyone who has watched Mad Men would recognize a lot of the styles of the period.

Obviously in over 50+ years some of the people(and pets)pictured are no longer with us so it was a nice was to show them to the kids or just remember them in general. It was amazing how some photos of the kids and relatives when they were younger really display the family resemblances we may not have noticed before or forgotten. I noticed a few poses that have been repeated over the years among our own family, whether subconsciously or not.

I was particularly taken with the early photos of my wife in our first years together. I always thought she was a hottie and have to admit that it was one of the things that first attracted me to her. Looking at the older pictures I can see how lucky I was to marry her, she was even better looking than I remembered. And as we have aged she has lost nothing to her early looks, she just keeps getting better. I am one fortunate guy.

I hope my dad gets a chance to get more of the slides copied for us to see. I wish I still had our early family photos but unfortunately a lot of them were damaged by water.

Sandy and I went for a hike on the trails today and took our dog Oliver. I decided to give my knee a rest for the day by hiking instead of riding. It was cold enough that Sandy was able to wear her wool hat I gave her years ago. If it is much above 15 degrees it is almost too warm for her. I think it makes her look like a movie star.

2010