By Judy Wagner, Videographer – Family Video Timecapsules
Last year, our LSP Blog page had a great piece with advice on downsizing by one of our leaders, Ronda Barrett. (See it here: Downsizing: A Time for Reminiscence)
Now I find myself on the receiving end of her advice. As members of the leading edge of the baby boom, my family and I are seriously considering a move in the coming year or so out of our too-large house into a smaller but more aging-friendly environment. So, our own downsizing has begun!
What I’ve found is that downsizing has strange effects on the downsizer. First off, you pick up an old object, or survey a piece of furniture, for the ultimate question: keep, donate, or throw away? You find yourself asking why this piece has stayed with you for 40, 50, or 60 years. You may 
move it to the trash pile, then a few days later move it back to the ‘keepers’ pile. It’s a slow, daunting process, full of emotion, but you know you can’t keep everything. You may decide to keep some objects because you think they could have monetary value, but they mean nothing to you or your family’s history. Other objects are virtually worthless in a commercial sense, but they mean everything to you because of the family story behind them.
Then I got an idea how to make it easier to let things go: Create a Virtual House History Tour!
It’s so much easier to give an object away after you’ve honored its history and value by creating a video record of its appearance, with your own commentary on its background and meaning to your family.
I’m collaborating with a videographer to create a video vignette of my beloved objects and their history. I’ll be the narrator, explaining to the camera (and my family) in my own voice, with all its crackles and giggles, how the object fits into my family’s history, why I’ve kept it, and why I’m planning to keep, donate, or chuck it. My video producer and I will tour the house, stopping at important objects, and I will expound.
Here’s a small sample of “objects”, and what I might say about them in our upcoming virtual house tour:
Tijuana Cat: Worthless from a money point of view, but infinitely valuable for the memory of 2-hour trip to Tijuana with my daughter when she was only 9. We rode by train from San Diego, and at a vendor’s tent near the border we found this paper-mache’ cat on sale for $10. I’d heard you should bargain with vendors in Mexico, so I offered $3; he countered with $4, and we got it! Daughter was horrified that I’d been so cheap, but we both took very good care of it in the ensuing years. Our real cat, Nicki, was very leery when first she spied it but eventually figured out that it was probably a mummy and lost interest within a day. Tijuana Cat will be passed on.
Grandma K’s Persian Rug: Worth thousands of dollars, and also priceless to me. Grandma was an Armenian immigrant in the early 1900’s. Her family had been wealthy in the old country but once here she and Grandpa were poverty-stricken. Yet, by 1930 she had acquired this Keshan rug for her dining room. She knew rugs! It dates to about 1920, but the pile still looks new. I remember playing under her table as a child, on that very rug. It’s now under my own dining room table. Antique rugs don’t live forever, I understand, but this is a keeper and deserving of TLC for as long as I live. I wonder if any of my grandchildren (who have played under my table) will have it in their dining rooms. They should tell their children that their own great-great grandma bought that rug back in the 1920’s, and she knew rugs!
Mahogany drop leaf table from Aunt Elizabeth: According to an appraiser, worth a lot, but to me, not much at all. Aunt Elizabeth was my Grandpa Doc’s second wife — a wonderful, accomplished, and kind woman, but not one I knew well. There are no stories about this table. I just inherited it after Aunt E. had died and kept it because my mother said it was valuable. So, unless our new abode has a place for just this piece and no other it will be consigned to consignment. Even if it does stay with me till the end, I give permission to all descendents to turn it into hard cash for college or some other important use.
So, after my upcoming journey through the house with my videographer pal, I know I’ll be much better prepared for the hard decisions to come as we recognize the inevitable: living with time’s arrow requires us to decide and adapt!
My business, Family Video Timecapsules, LLC, is now offering Virtual History House Tours to interested families in Metropolitan Washington. Browse my Website to learn more.