Posing for three-second video templates, giggling behind a sticky tablet screen, subjecting my parents to hour-long films of my Barbies…Okay, fine. I admit it. I was an iMovie kid. As embarrassing as it is to watch clips of my ten-year-old self mime the lyrics of Let It Go with bizarre geometric special effects, my awkward iMovie past is something I remember with fondness. It also inspired the ever-evolving home video my family and I watch every Christmas Eve.
The movie’s origins go all the way back to 2014. While Ellen Degeneres’ Oscars selfie and Five Nights at Freddy’s took over the world, I was busy on the family iPad cutting video clips and editing sound effects to create my — please note the sarcasm — masterpieces. Being the oldest cousin and kid on my block, I saw it as my duty to coerce mobs of young children into starring in my films. They loved seeing themselves on screen, and I loved being the director behind the vision.
I also loved Christmas. And praise. Who didn’t? So when December of that year rolled around, I made it my mission to create the best holiday video of me and my cousins and to play it during our annual Christmas Eve dinner. Not only would this impress my aunts, uncles and grandparents, but it would create an excuse for my entire family to gather together in one room, watching the same thing and experiencing the same joy. The movie (only seven minutes in total that first year) opened with a silly trailer introducing myself, my sister and our six cousins. Following this was an elf JibJab with our faces pasted onto the dancers. I titled the film: A Very Cousin Christmas. That was it.
The video was a smash hit. I still remember myself ballooning with pride after making my relatives burst with laughter. My grandmother asked for a CD of the film to rewatch whenever she missed us. My response to this was an unhesitating NO! I had decided, then and there, that A Very Cousin Christmas was a holiday tradition, and viewing it during any other time was a complete violation of…something (or so my eleven-year-old mind had decided).
By 2017, I knew the video had become vaguely predictable, so my next course of action was to add on. I scripted a storyline about misbehaving elves and assigned my cousins roles. The seven-minute movie became 12 minutes. It was a great surprise to our parents and grandparents when clips they hadn’t seen before played on screen. In 2018, I gave each of my cousins solo interviews, asking facetious questions like “Which cousin is most likely to be on the naughty list this year?” and “How many cookies do you think Santa will eat on Christmas Eve?”
Last year, I undertook my greatest project yet. I asked my relatives to send me any Christmas morning videos from their archives, and I compiled them together to make a Christmas morning montage. I ended up with an eight-minute segment of our most nostalgic moments. My goal for this year is to make the film interactive. To somehow break the fourth wall and engage the adults. I have a few ideas, but you guys will have to wait until 2023 to hear them!
A Very Cousin Christmas is now something my entire extended family looks forward to and is the highlight of every Christmas Eve, no matter how old we get. I never could have predicted the tradition my casual iMovie interest would initiate, but I am forever grateful it did so. Amid petty drama and dinner table politics, amid gift exchanges and card games, amid the one day a year my family is together, we give thirty minutes of ourselves to our pasts, presents and futures.