Welcome to the December issue!

Can you believe we’ve almost chewed through 2014 already? I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Meaningful Kwanzaa and a Healthy, Joyous and Prosperous 2015!

I hope you enjoy this issue of the Family Legacy Video® Producer’s e-Newsletter. Please e-mail me at steve@familylegacyvideo.com or phone toll-free (888.662.1294) with any questions or comments you have.

Cheers! – – Steve Pender
_________________________________________

Life stories: The greatest gifts of all.

I’d thought I’d have some fun with the cover of Family Legacy Video’s holiday greeting card this year. Through the magic of Photoshop, I sent my cameraman, Dan Crapsi, and myself back in time to an A&P grocery store in 1920s Elizabeth, New Jersey. The young fellow leaning against the shelf who I’m interviewing is the store manager. He’s also my maternal grandfather, Leon Ciurczak.

Grandpa Ciurczak worked a number of jobs over his life, but he always had a special spot for grocery stores. When I was in high school, I can remember driving him to a local supermarket to pick up a few items. He strolled through the store, happily humming, as if he owned the place. He greeted the cashiers and chided the produce manager for displaying celery that, in Grandpa’s opinion, wasn’t quite fresh enough.

I didn’t see this photo of him in his grocery store, nor did I have the chance to interview him, before he passed. But I do fantasize, now and again, about how great it would be to zip back in time to interview his younger self. If I had, generations of his descendants, like the young family in the smaller photo, would be able to share the experience of hearing and seeing Grandpa talk about his life.

What a fabulous experience that would be! Not only would his grandchildren, great-grandchildren and generations to come learn great family stories, but they’d get a chance to experience Grandpa as a living, breathing, “three dimensional” human being, instead of as a flat, silent and static image in a photo album.

Video and camcorders didn’t exist in the 1920s, of course, but they exist now, and so we all have the opportunity to do what folks in the years before video couldn’t: pass along our life stories to generations of our families we may never know, but who will get to know us and benefit from our life experiences.

So this holiday season, consider the gift of video biography. Whether you hire the pros at Family Legacy Video® or you do it yourself, give your family storytellers and your families the greatest gift of all, the gift of life stories. It’ll be a gift your loved ones will treasure now, and for generations to come.

– Steve Pender