If there’s interest, we would like to have a Ghosts of Christmas Past for a week or two around Christmas, in the 10 pm On the Road slot. We think it could be fun, even for folks who might not typically participate in the usual on the road threads.
To get us started, Albatrossity sent in this adorable photo:
You can send in a full submission with Christmas photos, or just send just a photo or two that can be combined with others. Labelled as your photos, or anonymous, totally up to you.
Decorations. Pets dressed up for Christmas, or under the tree surrounded by a collection of every single toy that was given to every single dog that year. Yes, I am thinking of my cocker spaniel, Mellon, who did that one year when I was in my twenties. I think I spotted a kindred spirit in this year’s pet calendar, too.
Or the puppy you got that year for Christmas, or your beloved pet in a Christmas hat. Or on the couch with family or friends, all of you in your new Christmas socks. You at 6 years old, dressed in your Christmas PJs by the tree. Outside playing in the snow with your new sled.
Sweet, funny, silly, whatever you want. The only requirement is Christmas. And pants. Or at least jammies. Sorry, Baud, we really struggled with that decision, but we think we landed on the right side of this one.
If someone is willing to pay me enough money, I could post the photo of 18-year old me, standing by the tree in my purple crushed velvet pantsuit, with an amazing amount of make-up on.
What do you think? Is anybody up for this?
Most of us won’t be together with family and friends in the usual way this Christmas, so perhaps some Ghosts of Christmas Past can bring some joy to all of us?
Update: We’re a go. New name is Ghosts of Holidays Past.
SiubhanDuinne
Oh, yes! I have one or two photos that I’d love to contribute!
P.S.
Name your price!
Baud
I thought the election result meant we had won the War on Christmas.
Mary G
I don’t know if I could find any old photos, but I’d love to see that and send in my housemate’s tree.
Kristine
I’ve always considered purple a forgotten Christmas color. Represent, WaterGirl!
I’ll see if I can dig up a photo or two.
way2blue
Yep. Great idea. Love it…
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ll have to find the photo, and then let you know. :-)
japa21
@WaterGirl: I’ll chip in.
Baud
Me too!
Wag
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’d chip in for that, too!
realbtl
WaterGirl- I sent you an email with a link to a possible candidate from bj past.
WaterGirl
@realbtl: We can absolutely use that. Shall I include your nym and the pup’s name?
Wanderer
Such a great photo!
WaterGirl
I can’t believe no one else has commented on how adorable Albatrossity is in that photo. Those eyes! And the smile.
Ha! I posted mine just as you were posting yours. :-)
WaterGirl
@Baud: You had the same outfit I did? Or you want to see the purple crushed velvet pantsuit?
realbtl
@WaterGirl: No problem.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I thought Albatrossity was a bird.
JanieM
Count me in for the fund to see WaterGirl in a purple crushed velvet pantsuit.
Also for a few Christmas photos.
As to 18-year-olds in memorable clothing, Connie Schultz posted a photo the other day of her 18(?)-year-old self decked out for the prom.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I meant the former but would like the latter.
WaterGirl
@JanieM: I’m surprised she’s not still grounded!
WaterGirl
@Baud: We should both post our purple crushed velvet pantsuit photos without names and see if they can figure out who is who!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Who wore it better!
Benw
@WaterGirl: I like this idea generically: posts with one old photo of a FPer and one of a commenter and guess who’s who
JanieM
@WaterGirl: LOL. I’d like to know who her date was, and if he gave permission for her to publish a picture of him in his outfit. ;-)
(She and I come from the same home town, although she’s a good bit younger than I am and we didn’t go to the same schools.)
WaterGirl
Okay, start sending those photos in! And don’t forget to provide a description.
If it’s just one or two, you can choose between the On the Road form and sending me the photos.
For more than two, you might want to use the form.
For a full set, please use the On the Road form.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Probably you, but I guess we’ll find out.
But I was definitely rockin the makeup. Holy cow.
Lapassionara
This is a great idea! Thanks, WaterGirl. I have no phots to contribute, but I look forward to seeing you in a purple crushed velvet pantsuit. As always, you have the best ideas.
frosty
I just got all my early (pre-marriage) pix back from ScanCafe and there are a couple of really cute B/W ones of me and my twin brother my parents took at what was probably our second birthday. I’ll send them along via email.
ETA: what’s my share of the cost for the purple velvet pantsuit picture?
Jeffro
@WaterGirl: if i have just one…send it how, now?
zhena gogolia
@JanieM:
Oh, that is great.
JanieM
@zhena gogolia: I laugh again every time I look at that picture. You just know one of her parents is snapping it, and the look on her face suggests she already knows just what kind of trouble she’s in.
WaterGirl
@Lapassionara: Gosh, what a nice compliment!
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: Sure! Just send it as an email attachment, and be sure to include your description.
Setting the stage with the stories will be part of the fun.
Joy in FL
I would like to send 2 photos. I know where one is; I’ll look for other.
This is a great idea, and that adorable photo of Albatrossity made me want to participate : )
WaterGirl
@Joy in FL: oh yay!
WaterGirl
I should say that i will be without a computer for most of the day tomorrow, so if you send pics in tomorrow, don’t be concerned that I won’t respond right away.
Albatrossity
@Joy in FL: Thanks! I was apparently a very cute child. According to the pictures, anyway. My sisters probably would have a different opinion…
zhena gogolia
@JanieM:
We were blissfully braless back then. I wish that fashion would come back.
Omnes Omnibus
@Benw: That way lies madness. No, I say. No.
Mike in NC
When my mother died several years ago, my older brother inherited the collection of family photo albums going back decades. I assume he trashed them.
WaterGirl
@Mike in NC: You could always ask, maybe you would be pleasantly surprised?
raven
@Mike in NC: I’m lucky, I have more than 20,000 pics in my Flickr and many are family.
prostratedragon
Not Christmas as such –will have to think about that as ours were pleasant but not exciting, and church-centered since Dad was a pastor– but found out just today that Beethoven, that spry 250-year-old, wrote arrangements for dozens of folksongs, many from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Here’s a short set from some Wisconsin musicians.
Albatrossity
@raven: Yeah, my dad was a professional photographer, and all of my siblings and I got cameras when we turned 10. I often joke that there are probably fewer pictures of the Taj Mahal compared to those from my childhood. Fortunately I have a nephew who is into genealogy, and he has collected many of those older pics and slides and home movies and digitized them.
raven
@Albatrossity: My mom’s cousin had hundreds of family pics from Southern Illinois and not only did he send them to me on a disc, he labelled each picture!
Just One More Canuck
@SiubhanDuinne: I read that without reading the byline – I was praying it wasnt Cole
Albatrossity
@raven: Yeah, we’ve helped my nephew as much as possible with names for those faces. Some of the pics are from the 19th century, however, and if those were’t already labeled, it wasn’t gonna happen!
WaterGirl
@Just One More Canuck: I’m not sure that Cole in a purple crushed velvet pantsuit could be any worse than my photo.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Let’s not find out.
Albatrossity
@Omnes Omnibus: Indeed. 2020 has been bad enough already; we don’t need that!
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: oops, missed the “send it how” question the first time.
You can submit it through the On the Road form, or you can send it to me as an email attachment with the description that should go with it.
Benw
@Omnes Omnibus: live a little OO :)
Just One More Canuck
@Omnes Omnibus: agreed
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Cole will think I have lost my mind if I write and ask if he happens to have any photos of himself in a crushed velvet pantsuit.
edit: I had missed the “let’s NOT” when I wrote this comment. You’re right, best to not go there.
Omnes Omnibus
@Benw: YOU ARE NOT MY SUPERVISOR!!!
raven
@Albatrossity: I have a picture of my dad at a picnic the day he came home from WW2. There is a guy in it I couldn’t identify and I put it on my hometown facebook page and, boom. someone saw their uncle!.
I am always looking for info and pics of my ancestors. I found a listing of pictures on a site and found the name of one of my grandfathers uncles who was a civil war vet. I wrote the person on the list and they sent me the photo for $10. She was a retired librarian in Naperville, Il and she said she tried to get photos back to their families!
WaterGirl
I bet mom and dad cole, or john’s sisters, have some adorable family Christmas photos from when Cole was just a tyke.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: If we could film the reaction scene, it might be worth it. But not if we actually have to see him in such a suit.
Scout211
blog.zoom.us/zoom-together/
Zoom just announced more unlimited zooming during the holidays this month. Yay!
Richard
@Baud: not yet.
zhena gogolia
@Richard:
Is that a quotation from George Washington in Hamilton?
randy khan
What a great idea! I’ve submitted a set. You could consider it a sort of time lapse.
Sure Lurkalot
I hope I have time tomorrow to look!
Yutsano
Sadface. It’s entirely possible no pictures like that have survived the various moves we and I have had over the years. I shall enquire on the morrow.
Aleta
Krystian Zimerman, Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 – II Adagio
Wiener Philharmoniker, directed by Leonard Bernstein
Mary G
@raven: I’ve been wondering what to do with my old photos, since I am the last of my line. My grandfather bought his house for $1,100 in Austin TX right after WWI in a neighborhood called Swede Hill where everybody spoke Swedish at church, social clubs, etc. My grandmother moved out and sold it in the 80s when values were low and the family said the area was now a (expletives deleted) ghetto. When Google Earth first came in my mom asked to see it and it was completely concealed by overgrown trees and bushes. We weren’t even sure there was still a house there!
Fast forward to last month when I was trying to get a copy of my divorce decree from 1981 to start getting a small pension when I turn 65 this month. I found a whole package of documents – turns out it was sold for $630,000 or so and because it’s now considered an historical district the owners have to get permission to remodel and add a second story. They had found facts about my family I didn’t know, and I know some facts they don’t. I’m even mentioned. Now I’m thinking of writing the owners to ask if they would like any of the photos showing the house to keep with the house, or if they’ve been in touch with any of my cousins who might want them. I have four cousins and not a one has anything on the internet, probably too busy going to Trump rallies or dead.
What a great solution if they said yes! I’ve been agonizing over this.
debbie
@Mary G:
You might want to contact your local historical society and see if there’s any interest.
Richard
@Baud: i think it might be a whole other thing. I’m not keeping it this year because it is hostage. I am confused. Dear Santy i write you a letter. Please help us.
prostratedragon
@Mary G: Good luck with it. Sounds both wonderful for you and the memory of your family, and a way to enhance the historical value of the house. I should look up my grandfather’s house in Memphis, which as of five or so years ago was still there on google earth, looking much the same with the addition he made to it for a large family.
Several pieces for mandolin by Beethoven. The man could do anything; the last one reminds me of “Turkey in the Straw.”
Yutsano
@prostratedragon:
It’s entirely possible he cribbed it. There was a fashion back then to take “peasant music” and make it more “sophisticated”. I can’t say for sure that’s what he did, but it’s entirely possible.
Steve in the ATL
@prostratedragon:
Which neighborhood?
Steve in the ATL
@prostratedragon:
Fuck Erdoğan!
Mary G
@prostratedragon: There were a lot of pictures and except for a newer stove and refrigerator in the kitchen, it looked exactly the same as it did in the 1960s. I guess it just sat there under all the foliage.
prostratedragon
@Steve in the ATL: North Rembert St., within earshot of the lion at the zoo back in the early 1950s. As Rembert’s not a long street, that almost gives it away.
something fabulous
I know it’s a Dickens reference and all, but let’s make it… ecumenical, for all the non-chrirstmas celebrators! [that said, not sure I have any hannukah-celebrating ones, but will look!]
ETA: …ha! Ghosts of happy holidays!
Steve in the ATL
@prostratedragon: holy shit—I grew up on Belleair, one street—and one universe—over!
#Midtown4eva
used to get hassled (read: threatened with grievous bodily harm) by the locals (“this is a n***** street—you stay on Poplar, you hear us?”) on Rembert when riding my Raleigh from Belleair to the University Club to play tennis (decent parents would have driven me!)
ETA: and Rembert has been seriously gentrified in the last few years
WaterGirl
@randy khan: Got it!
Steve in the ATL
@prostratedragon: PM me the address and I’ll send you pictures next time I’m visiting mom or uncle bill
NotMax
Not emanating from a family which celebrated that particular holiday, shall take a pass.
;)
Yarrow
@Mary G: Have you tried contacting the Swede Hill Neighborhood Association? They might also be interested or be able to help you out.
prostratedragon
@Steve in the ATL: Will do –but what is PM?
Steve in the ATL
@prostratedragon: private message. Get my email from a front pager!
WaterGirl
@prostratedragon: @Steve in the ATL:
I can put the two of you togethe, if you like.
WaterGirl
@something fabulous: Well, I do like the Dickens reference, but I was thinking of this more in the “holiday” sense, and I certainly don’t want to leave anyone out.
So Ghost of Holidays Past it will be.