How One Family Recovered Their Lost Home Videos 16 Years Later

— -- A Pennsylvania family will have an extra special Christmas this year, after years of home videos they lost 16 years ago were recently recovered at a New Jersey beach.

Mark Christini was on vacation with his wife and two daughters in Point Pleasant, New Jersey in 1998 when he accidentally left a bag containing a handycam and several home videos on the beach.

The family had all but forgotten about the tapes when they learned they had been found -- thanks to the power of social media and the determined employees at Jenkinson's Boardwalk.

"At first, complete surprise, and then just gratitude," Christini told ABC News today of how he felt when he heard the news. "It's a story of someone doing something extra special to try to help somebody out. And we're just incredibly thankful."

The home videos show the Christini family, from Towanda, Pennsylvania, at the lake, hanging out with friends, and even capture some of Maria Christini's first steps.

Christini's daughters seen in the videos are now 20 and 22 years old. He and his wife have since had a third daughter, who is 11 years old.

A Jenkinson's Boardwalk employee, Dan Camano, found the bag in September in the office's attic.

He told ABC News he was trying to clean up a "pile of junk" that had been in the office for years when he discovered the tapes. Instead of throwing them away, he decided to enlist social media for help.

"We put up a picture of the camera in the bag and the tapes," Camano said. "We did it as a throwback Thursday post."

The camera in the bag didn't work anymore, but Camano found an old one of his own at his parents' house, and used that to watch the tapes.

"The family was really good about sharing what was on the tapes," he said. "There was a last name on one. We knew the two girls who are featured in it a lot because their names were said."

Camano contacted local news stations, which aired snippets from the videos, and continued to use social media to find the family. Finally, it worked.

"We had a bunch of amateur detectives on our side on Facebook trying to Google these names and places," he said. "Someone found this guy, Mark, and his family."

Christini said the sleuth who finally tracked him down is a woman who lives in New Jersey, and who had seen his tapes on the news and became determined to find him. He's trying to plan a trip back to the New Jersey shore to pick up the bag -- and some lost memories.