Sixty Years Later

An old holiday album, a family “no gifts” rule, and a birthday present anyway

Sometimes family rules are practical, but still slightly tragic.

In our family group chat, someone suggested we should stop giving birthday presents to each other. “Do we really still need to buy gifts?” Most of the others agreed immediately. I was the only one thinking: Excuse me? I actually love giving presents. And yes… I also like receiving them. Very old-fashioned of me, apparently.

But the rule became official:
No more birthday gifts.

Fine.

Except… I secretly still made something for my sister.

A while ago she was visiting me, and she suddenly said, “I think we once went on holiday to Hilversum when we were children. It’s such a shame I hardly remember anything about it.”

That sentence stayed in my head.

After my parents died, I took home the old family photo albums. Years ago, my sisters and I sat together going through them all. Everyone kept the photos they wanted, and the rest stayed with me. Recently I was rummaging around upstairs and suddenly found an album from that exact holiday in Hilversum.

From 1966.

Small black-and-white photographs of children who had no idea they would one day become elderly people discussing birthday policies in a family app group. Haha…

And honestly, the pictures were wonderful.

My papa was such a good potographer.

So I started working on them. I used AI to colorize the photographs. Of course AI invents half of it. The clothes colors may be completely wrong an look at photo two… I should have included in the prompt that the girl on the right had black hair. Now she’s blonde. But I loved doing it anyway.

I made a collage, bought a frame, and now it’s going to be her birthday present tomorrow.

Technically this breaks the family rule.
But emotionally, I feel innocent.

And the funny thing is: that holiday was in 1966, and now it’s 2026.
Exactly sixty years ago.

Completely accidental. But I like it.

So tomorrow my sister (born 1960) will unwrap a framed collage of a holiday she barely remembered… until now.

And eerlijk (honestly)?

I just really hope she likes it.