I love the Throwback Thursday Instagram hashtag (#tbt). It’s an inspiration for me to scan the big box of old photos that I’ve had forever. I wish there were more people my age and older doing it though, because seeing a bunch of “me in my Jonas Brothers teeshirt at 3yo!” captions is a bit depressing. And us Olds have a lot more history to “throwback” to, if you get my drift. That’s why when I found this photo I knew it would add a bit of #AARP to #tbt.
This is Christmas Eve in my grandmother’s house in Philadelphia.
A few observations:
This was sixth grade and dropped-waist dresses were all the rage then. That lovely purple jumper and white turtleneck most likely came from Sears Catalog, where most of my clothing came from until I went to middle school and nearly died three months in when I realized nobody else got their clothing from the Sears Catalog.
If you have any doubt as to why I am so hard into Christmas, all you have to do is look at the decorations I was surrounded with growing up. People with their understated not-quite-red and not-very-green decor just can’t match the over-the-top Christmas debauchery of the 60s-80s. My family could have decorated Liberace’s house for Christmas. I miss that.
I personalized the hat myself with glue and glitter, because getting one at the mall was really expensive at the time.
The camera. Wow, that camera. It was a Kodak Pleaser Instant model that I earned by selling personalized Christmas cards door-to-door from a catalog. Flashbar sold separately. It had a crank on the side that you would turn to eject the photo. Kodak was later sued by Polaroid for swiping the insta-print technology and lost. So I ended up sadly sending it back to Kodak so that I could get a lamer, cheaper camera in return. But if I saved it, I could have sold it for $6.99 on eBay!
Oh what a night! Late December back in eighty-three…
*I prefer the Ink361 site for browsing Instagram photos. I’m @kimberussell on IG.
There is nothing I don’t like about this picture!