Greg Wasz, founder of Greg Wasz Productions, argues that the weeks between late November and the start of a new year present families with more opportunities to record video than almost any other time on the calendar. The Cincinnati-based sales professional, who turns his own family’s travel and holiday moments into finished videos, says the season’s value lies in its concentration of people and experiences that rarely align otherwise.
“Holidays bring people together in one place, often for the only time all year,” Wasz says. “That alone makes it worth having a camera out.” He notes that families typically reserve filming for major trips, such as a week in Italy or a stay at Disney, while overlooking quieter moments at home. A living room on Christmas morning, a grandparent telling a story at the table, or children arguing over a board game may not feel like “footage” in the moment, so nobody reaches for a phone. Wasz identifies this as the most common mistake he sees: treating video as something reserved for vacations.
“People save the camera for the big trip and miss everything that happens in between,” he says. “Those in-between moments are usually the ones that matter most a few years later.” The implication is significant for families who want lasting records of their shared life. Holiday gatherings often include relatives who do not appear in footage the rest of the year—grandparents, cousins, and faraway family members who may only be in the same room once annually. Recording them during the holiday stretch becomes a natural priority because the opportunity will not repeat for another twelve months.
Wasz approaches his own holiday and travel footage the way he treats any project for Greg Wasz Productions: he shoots more than he thinks he needs, then edits down later. He says editing is where a pile of clips becomes something a family will actually sit down and watch together. “Raw footage from a holiday is rarely interesting on its own,” he says. “It’s the editing that turns it into a story people want to watch again.” For his own family, that has meant building a habit of filming trips to places like the Maldives, California, and St. Barts alongside smaller moments at home, then combining them into a cohesive record. He says the same approach works at any scale, whether the footage comes from a week abroad or a single evening around a table.
As the calendar turns, Wasz suggests a simple shift rather than new equipment or a different app: change what gets filmed in the first place. “Start with what’s already happening instead of waiting for a big event,” he says. “A holiday dinner or a quiet afternoon at home is enough.” Families do not need to film everything to end up with something worth keeping. A few minutes of real moments, captured without much planning, often outlasts footage from an event staged for the camera. The broader implication is that the families who end up with videos worth watching are usually the ones who started filming before they felt ready—not after they had a reason.
