Posted by Walter B.

After a long, relaxing weekend, our family was looking for a holiday pick-me-up to rescue us before massive boredom set in. After dinner and dessert, I had a fatherly stroke of genius: "How about we watch some old family videos for an hour?" My wife said that is sounded great, but an hour would be too long because everybody needed to go to bed early for a long week ahead. I smiled inside. An hour would never be long enough! So I corralled the crew into the family room, while my wife pulled out a random selection of homemade family videos.

The video camera is still burning hot from running nearly two hours of various random family videos. Sounds like a segment on iCarly, doesn't it? "Random Family Videos." We started out with scenes of our oldest daughter and son. Opening Christmas presents, watching our then puppy, Jet the dog, chew his giant new rawhide bone. There were moments of near misses like when my oldest nearly ran over her little brother with her new roller coaster while dad swooped in and pulled him from certain collision.

A few tears were shed as we watched our twins just days old hooked up to all kinds of wires in the NICU struggling to gain stable vital signs and some needed weight. That was just a shade over five years ago. Next came the gut busters when my now 11-year-old son convinced his best friend to take his shirt off and go swimming in the pretend pool in our basement. My daughter and her friend held the video camera with the steadiness of a drunken sailor. Or the time when the same son, dressed like a Dalmatian, acted like his sister's pet jumping and barking. Our younger son always seemed to negotiate his way in the middle of the fray with hardly a scratch. The random video productions of "Everything is Gonna Be All Right" and "Welcome to Mushyland" (subject of a potential New Year's blog), included all my children and were just a few of the family favorites.

My wife and I were portrayed in many quite flattering ways (yah right) and often were found to be referees without whistles. Although some memories are better left erased, it was great to see our own family version of the George Bailey-inspired "It's a Wonderful Life."

Remember to pass the ice cream when eating your pie and pull out some of those old home videos every now and then. It's well worth the price of admission.

What are some of your funniest Random Family Video memories? Please share. I'm sure we could all use a good laugh from our post-turkey stuffed blues!

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