The Gift That Keeps Giving… Memories

When I started to work with YesVideo to transfer some of our home movies and share the uncovered memories, I knew that those transferred 8 mm tapes would make a perfect Christmas gift for my mom. She is the official memory keeper of the family, and I was thrilled to give her the gift of memories that had been long locked away on an ancient format (8 mm!).

Having only a brief description of what each tape contained, I really didn’t know what to expect. But watching our old home videos mesmerized me more than I dreamed that it would. I excepted to watch bits and pieces, boarded with most. But I sat there for hours and hours reliving each moment — even my kid-sister’s birthday party. 

One of the most amazing moments watching our videos was hearing my Granny’s voice. She passed away more than a decade ago, and she was stricken with severe Alzheimer’s for a long time before that. So I have no real memory of her voice. So when I heard her speak on a video of Christmas morning, I was caught off guard. She was so southern. I really didn’t remember how heavy her drawl was, but hearing her voice brought back a flood of memories — from before she became sick. It was like my own time capsule.  

The DVDs were presented to mom for Christmas, but my sister surprised me by being the first to borrow them watching the first DVD on Christmas night with her husband. 

And my mom’s gift kept giving the day after Christmas when extended family came to visit. After we chatted for a while, my mind wandered back to the DVDs. One of those old home movies contained footage from the ’80s of a family reunion between our families. I knew they would be just as excited to see the movies as I was, so I put it on in the background. 

Within moments, everyone stopped talking to watch the video. Oh how I wish someone would have thought to video record all of us watching that footage. From making fun of hair styles and clothing, to reminiscing about family members who are no longer with us — everyone was glued to the screen. Even the teenagers (my second cousins) enjoyed seeing their mom and dad and family members on video (in all of our fabulous ’80s glory). 

Transferring our old home videos to DVD has turned out to be the gift that keeps giving. My husband and I enjoyed them, my sister and her husband enjoyed them, my extended family enjoyed them and finally mom and enjoyed them.     

Captured on video, even small moments are neat to relive 25+ years later like checking out an old cannon at Fort DeSoto. More than anything else, this journey down memory lane urges me to take more videos of my kids during important events and every day moments.

I hope you enjoy this silly clip of my family goofing around by the old cannon here. 

YesVideo makes reliving your family memories possible, and with its online features sharing clips (like the one above) is easy. I can even send links to family members so they can order their own DVD copy. 

Don’t you want to find out what treasures are locked away on your home videos?

Transferring videos from my childhood has been a delight to me and left my 5-year-old daughter in awe: 

“Mom, who is that girl?”

“That’s me, and the other little girl is your Aunt when she was your age.”

“Woooowwwww.”