Bluegrass Mama

When HS was a baby, a friend gave me a photo album covered with Christmas fabric. For some long-forgotten reason, she had decided to call him “Ace,” and had that embroidered on the album. I decided to keep it as a photo record of his Christmases. The album itself was one of those archivally-challenged adhesive ones, and it eventually fell apart. I was able to salvage part of the decor, and moved the pictures to a new album. Every year I faithfully added a few pictures and a brief description of that holiday season.

When BD came along, I started a separate album for her.

All went along swimmingly for years. When I got my Christmas pictures back, I would pull out my favorites, write a little synopsis, and update the albums.

Then I went digital. I rarely print out pictures any more. I do, however, keep my digital albums pretty well organized. I have a separate folder for Christmas, with subfolders for each year.

When we pulled out the Christmas stuff this year, I realized that I hadn’t updated the albums since 2000. Technically, that means I haven’t done it since the last century. Yeah, I’m a little behind.

I decided it was time to catch up. So I picked out some (85, I believe) pictures, uploaded them to the Internet, and ordered prints for pick-up at my friendly neighborhood warehouse store.

The only problem is, the first year I have digital photos for is 2002.

My guess is that somewhere in this house are a handful of photo envelopes full of pictures taken just before and after the transition to digital (I actually used both for awhile, especially since my first digital camera was a cheap freebie that didn’t even have a zoom).

I have looked in all the usual places. In fact, I was amazed to find a huge stack of envelopes with negatives in them, a few of which are actually labeled. I suppose I should put them in a safe deposit box in case the house ever burns down. Along with that back-up CD of the digital pictures that I’ve been meaning to make for years.

Meanwhile, I guess I will just leave some blank spots in the albums, along with a note explaining that we really DID celebrate Christmas that year, despite the lack of evidence.