Christmas behind the Instagram filter

Do you ever wonder how your kids will remember their childhood when they look back on it? Do you think they’ll remember it the way the photos you posted on social media made it look? Will those specific moments that you chose to capture and share be the ones that will stand out for your children?

Like many other parent bloggers and vloggers I know, one of the reasons I often give for sharing aspects of our life online is to create an online memory book. These photos and videos I make are about giving my kids something to look back on when they’re older. But of course they’re not. Not really.

If that was all it was about then I’d just take the damn photos and film the damn clips without putting them online. It wouldn’t matter to me that no one else saw them. If it was just about creating something for my kids then I wouldn’t give two hoots about how many likes I got on a photo – I’m sure they wouldn’t think their childhood was any better because their mum had XYZ Instagram followers, after all.

I love looking back at photos and film from when I was small. The ones I like the best are the funny, less than perfect, often embarrassing ones. I like the photos that show my dad looking tired and grumpy in the background, or the ones showing me posing in a terribly cringey way. I like these because they show my childhood like I remember it – I don’t picture my days as a kid like something out of a magazine, so it’s nice to see the “reality” behind the shots. I think this is why I always prefer photos of real moments over highly posed snaps – my parents never went in for studio portraits or the like, so I probably get it from them. They prized the real, slightly awkward, funny photos over anything airbrushed.

And with that in mind I wanted to show some photos from the last few days in our house. Some of them made it onto Instagram and some didn’t. But they all have one thing in common: they were all real, taken on a whim, an impromptu moment with no styling or posing or “Smile at Mummy and the camera” stuff. This is our Christmas behind the Instagram filter. Maybe I’ll even go old school and print them all off to put in a photo album.

The NLM in his crusty dressing gown, with our messy, undecorated (top of the list for 2016 home improvements) bedroom in the background…

Two excited girls in matching Christmas Day outfits made by my mum, impatiently waiting to go downstairs and see if Father Christmas has been…

A blurry, too dark photo depicting the least Instagram-friendly toys possible. Not a wooden, monochrome toy in sight here. Note the near darkness outside due to it being BARELY MORNING…

Mess. Mess everywhere. Behind this photo you’d see me scurrying around, constantly tidying, retrieving bits of toys with a glass of prosecco in one hand and a fist full of stray wrapping paper in the other…

A hazy, awful photo taken mid-prosecco flow and with one hand on the camera and the other on a bowl of sprouts. The festive centrepiece hastily pushed to the end of the table, with mismatched tableware and every cracker at a wonky angle…

One child facing the camera, one child not. Pretty much the standard pose in our house whenever I try to get a shot of both girls together…

Still, one thing apparent in all of these photos I think is joy. Pure, unbridled, unfiltered, unposed, un-Instagram friendly joy. And that, I suppose, is all that matters.