My grandparents (Sito and Jido) bought an 8mm camera in the early 70s for the sole purpose of filming that year's Christmas. The idea that they would own a camera in the first place is strange. They weren't that type of people. In the 55+ years that they've been married, they never saw a movie together in the theaters. They always seemed to be the last ones to update any sort of technology. They never had a whole lot of money, but they bought a camera and some film in the early 70s.
I remember Jido getting out the reel to reel that sat on several books which sat on top of a TV dinner tray, and setting up the white screen that was pulled from a metal cylinder that had legs. Everyone would settle down. All of us; Sito and Jido and their 4 kids with their 4 spouses and their 8 kids, also included was other great aunts and uncles as well as close second cousins and parents of spouses. Many large and loud relatives in the living room of the house that Jido built. They all found a seat as Jido turned off the lights and turned on the machine. The room was silent except for the calming wave of the reel to reel.
The screen was a time portal. It was only 20 years before the present, in the same exact space of the same house, but everything else was different. Everyone was wearing 60s/70s type clothing, bright colors and with strange textures. The men had fine combed greased hair and the women had beehives and other extravagant doos. The kids (my Dad's generation) were all up to date with polyester bell bottoms and the girls and their dresses. The glasses were sharp and extreme, everything in general was sharp and extreme. I suppose it all made sense in my mind having grown up watching THE WONDER YEARS.
The film was of everyone attending Christmas gathered in a line taking turns kissing JidJid (My Great-Grandfather). It seemed strange to me as a kid, but everything seemed strange and unreal, but after all, I was watching a screen with project light on it, so it was never that real anyway. I never questioned why or when. It was it's own reality and existed there on the screen. One by one, everyone in the house kissed JidJid. It looked to me like they were acting out a play for the camera. As we watched each person kiss him, one or two of the people in the room would quietly say the name of the person doing the kissing; Aunt Booboo, Cousin Tom, Uncle Joe...
It wasn't until the last time I saw it. I was 27. I had stopped by and stayed a night after playing a show in Chicago. I brought up the old movie and all I could remember from it. As I was mentioning it Jido got up and walked to the TV. Under it was a mess of taped VHSes (mostly John Wayne movies). He went through them and found a DVD-R in a clear case. On the top it said, SERHAL FAMILY MOVIES. Jido said in a REALLY loud voice, as if I were the one who was hard of hearing, "David had the tapes put on this. They put music to it, all right there at the place. The music's all wrong though." (it was the Godfather music) It took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to get the DVD player to show up on the TV (they don't watch "those things"). I eventually figured it out and turned off the lights just like we used to. The movie played and Jido sat silently as he always did. This time I didn't have the aunts and uncles to chime in the names of the actors in the play. It didn't quite matter to me because I hardly knew any of them. It became very clear that I was looking at a generation that no longer exists. There was a completely different mindset and even a completely different culture on the screen.
My family is Lebanese. My JidJid, whos first name was Anthony (pronounced Seh-clearthroat-hal) which became his last name, came to America around 1913 with my SitSit. She was 13 and he was 17. Her brother had a job here in a factory in southeast Chicago and sponsored them to come. They told customs that they were married, but they weren't, they got married here in America (that young). SitSit never went to school and JidJid immediately started working. They had many many children and those children had many many children, making Christmas a very big deal. The Lebanese culture was still very strong within the first and 2nd generations. My aunt told me her and her sister would do a belly dance on special occasions as well as sang traditional Lebanese songs. Times were different then, far from the Americanized 3rd and now 4th generations of Serhals.
So, having all this in mind as I watched the movie as an adult, I was still not sure what was going on. Until after watching a few minutes of relatives kissing JidJid as he sat in a chair, Sito quietly said, "JidJid is sad because this was the first Christmas after SitSit had died." It was as if she had opened my eyes. I couldn't believe I never noticed it before. JidJid was sitting in the chair crying because his wife of 60 years passed away and left him behind. Suddenly that movie had a whole new meaning. We had been watching it all those years maybe to keep the memory of where our family comes from, not just to see what everybody looked like when they were young. JidJid died shortly after. My Dad was barely a teen.
The reality of what we were watching was magnified by the obvious reality of what was happening to my Sito and Jido. For the last few year they had constantly been on the brink of death. She had lung cancer, then colon cancer, and digestive problems, he had heart-attacks and fluid in his lungs and had an oxygen tube in his nose. I had never seen them look worse as when I watched the movie with them. I felt like both of them had gotten especially sad when they watch it this time, and of coarse I was barely holding on to losing it. It was a really special moment they shared with just me; somehow the only 3rd generation male bloodline Serhal, Chad Anthony Serhal. The end of the line? I hope not. I hope I have 30 kids lined up to kiss me someday when I'm old.
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