Tucked away in the corner of an antique shop, light fixtures and other decorations are reflected in a mirror. The mirror in this image is exactly like one that hung in my Great Aunt Hilda’s home. I remember being told as a child that the leaping deer were practicing to be part of Santa’s team on Christmas Eve. Without warning, familiar memories from the past can be found in unfamiliar places.
The shop where I shot this image is in New York City. The items reflected in the mirror could have hung in homes across the country decades ago. The antique candelabra in the foreground was updated with electric candles. The owners most likely were unwilling to give up an item from their past. I am sure this mirror hung in a home much more elaborate than Aunt Hilda’s in Nebraska. Did it hang in one the row houses along the streets of New York, or an apartment that over looked Central Park, or maybe in the flat of an artist in other parts of the city? I will never know. What I do know is that even though the mirrors hung in homes separated by miles and cultures, they are the same.