The Year in Review
Every year at this time my aunt sends out an email with a simple plea: "send me pictures for the family calendar- and adhere to the deadline- don't make me have to beg at Kinko's". That email sets into motion a frantic process of reviewing the year in pictures, organizing them and re-organizing them, and lastly sending a digital copy of one's calendar page to my aunt Lynda.
This tradition started about 15 years ago when my grandparents refused to accept anymore Christmas gifts. They had everything they needed or wanted, except time with family. Although we couldn't be there as often, we hatched a plan to keep them more connected. My mom and two aunts bought them a computer with which to email us (not a big hit), and we came up with the idea of the picture calendar (a huge hit). Each family got four pages- usually distributed in a similar manner: each grandchild (6) got a page, each daughter (3)and their spouses got a page, and then the whole family got a page.
Each Christmas my grandparents would open up the calendar as the first gift of the night on Christmas Eve and we would all gather around, jostling each other for a better view of the ONE published copy of the calendar.
As the grandchildren have grown up, the adventures depicted are grander, we now share our pages with spouses, and great-grandchildren have come along and taken over whole pages. It is now common place to hear things like, "Oh, that should be in the calendar" or "that one's going in for sure" at family functions.
The calendar, much awaited, highly anticipated, and much speculated about, has become the family's version of the release of a new video game system or the outcome of American Idol. It's big.
Sadly, my grandpa is no longer around to open it each year, my uncle no longer graces us with his calendar commentary, and my grandma can no longer see or really even understand much about it, but it remains an important part of the family. Now each family, including all the cousins get a copy of the calendar and open it simultaneously. It is quiet for a few minutes while everyone looks, and then comes the laughter and the exclamations of things like: "I didn't know you ran a race this year!", "When were you in San Francisco?, and "That is the cutest picture of her!".
Tonight as I started the process of doing the year of pictures in review- trying to pick out the most interesting, fun, and funny pieces of the last 12 months- I really thought about this tradition. How special it is, how sad it is that Grandma can't see it, how much it makes me miss seeing pictures of Grandpa and Uncle Don, and mostly how glad I am we keep doing it.
There is something to knowing that no matter if it is Eric and Tammy in South Carolina, Dave and Dana in Seattle, or my parents in Duluth- everyone of us has the same calendar hanging in our kitchens- watching the family go on adventures, change, and grow throughout the year.
This tradition started about 15 years ago when my grandparents refused to accept anymore Christmas gifts. They had everything they needed or wanted, except time with family. Although we couldn't be there as often, we hatched a plan to keep them more connected. My mom and two aunts bought them a computer with which to email us (not a big hit), and we came up with the idea of the picture calendar (a huge hit). Each family got four pages- usually distributed in a similar manner: each grandchild (6) got a page, each daughter (3)and their spouses got a page, and then the whole family got a page.
Each Christmas my grandparents would open up the calendar as the first gift of the night on Christmas Eve and we would all gather around, jostling each other for a better view of the ONE published copy of the calendar.
As the grandchildren have grown up, the adventures depicted are grander, we now share our pages with spouses, and great-grandchildren have come along and taken over whole pages. It is now common place to hear things like, "Oh, that should be in the calendar" or "that one's going in for sure" at family functions.
The calendar, much awaited, highly anticipated, and much speculated about, has become the family's version of the release of a new video game system or the outcome of American Idol. It's big.
Sadly, my grandpa is no longer around to open it each year, my uncle no longer graces us with his calendar commentary, and my grandma can no longer see or really even understand much about it, but it remains an important part of the family. Now each family, including all the cousins get a copy of the calendar and open it simultaneously. It is quiet for a few minutes while everyone looks, and then comes the laughter and the exclamations of things like: "I didn't know you ran a race this year!", "When were you in San Francisco?, and "That is the cutest picture of her!".
Tonight as I started the process of doing the year of pictures in review- trying to pick out the most interesting, fun, and funny pieces of the last 12 months- I really thought about this tradition. How special it is, how sad it is that Grandma can't see it, how much it makes me miss seeing pictures of Grandpa and Uncle Don, and mostly how glad I am we keep doing it.
There is something to knowing that no matter if it is Eric and Tammy in South Carolina, Dave and Dana in Seattle, or my parents in Duluth- everyone of us has the same calendar hanging in our kitchens- watching the family go on adventures, change, and grow throughout the year.
posted by KLOU | 8:04 PM
1 Comments:
That was one of the sweetest stories I've read in a long while. Thanks for it! -Jeremy
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