Preserving Christmas Memories

As everyone puts Christmas away, I wanted

to share some of my favorite ways of remembering

past Christmases.  

Christmas is our favorite holiday and it has the

most family traditions surrounding it at

our home.  We spend a lot of time and energy

trying to create magical memories at this

time of year and looking back at my own life,

I realize so many memories are jogged by

pictures.  

(Taken 22 years ago when my youngest was under a year.  This

picture is put out every year.  Now the two oldest have five of

their own.)

I want my children to remember, so gifts I give,

and Christmas decor involves pictures, and I 

want to share some of my favorite ways I have

found.

My most popular post last year was 

My Life Story, which I published with

lulu.com.  I have loved using Lulu for family

histories.  I have also regularly published my blog,

making copies for each of our children, with Blog2print,

but lately my favorite source has been Costco Photo.

(Christmas 2016 Book)

Photos at Christmas are so colorful and vibrant

and I wanted to preserve some of that.  I accidentally

discovered Costco's 12x12 flatfold book a few years

ago when I printed up a memory book for my oldest

granddaughter when she had spent two year's as 

a Little Miss for our friend Hannah while she was

Miss Orem and Miss Utah County.  When I got

the book back I was stunned by the thick, luxe pages

that were so glossy and stunning.  They start at $39

and I have recommended them to everyone I know.

Hannah's twin sisters both recently got married and

used these books for sign in books.

I gave one of these books to each of my children

this year - documenting Christmas 2016.  I want

to capture our traditional chocolate dipping,

desserts served,

and tables set.

These are priceless memories to me.

I had done this previously in a book comprising

our first 30 years of Christmases.  Now I plan

to do one each Christmas.  It will be so fun to watch

as the family grows, and we are always together for

Christmas.  The Christmas Memories 1979 To 2009

was printed by Shutterfly, but I can't begin to 

tell you how much more I like the glossy photos

from Costco.  I have printed these books

for family vacations also and place them

in the living room for others to look at.

It isn't every year that we get a good group

photo, but last year we had time to set up the

family, and the camera on a tripod, and play

with bouncing the flash off the vaulted

ceiling.  The picture was so good, I wanted to

blow it up.  I had tried a photo from Costco

printed on metal from my youngest son's

wedding this summer (still haven't posted about

that - yikes!) and so I decided to print the family

pajama photo out on metal.  It turned out so well,

it was placed next to the piano that houses 

our village and is guarded by two giant

nutcrackers.  (These were Costco purchases almost

20 years ago!)

After our little angel's picture was so beautiful,

I also had it printed on metal from Costco.  The

difference in printing on metal is it gives you such

bright and vivid pictures and such a high gloss

finish.  This one cost $53.  

This Holy Family shot was from two

Christmases ago - this is the 2 1/2 year

old that crawled into the manger this year

when she was six months old.  I had this

printed last year on canvas from Costco.

The mother of these little ones, my oldest

daughter, just had a larger canvas printed

of this for her family.  

You never know when you are going to

get a photo worth enlarging and printing.  If

you look closely, you can see that behind Joseph

is our same little angel, but she was bending down

and goofing around - you can see her halo above

Joseph's head.  When you did get a great 

photo, why not enlarge it and print it on

metal or canvas and use it as decor?

I hope these ideas inspire you as to how you

can preserve some fun family memories and

use them for gifts and decor.  The years flee

so quickly, it is wonderful to capture these

memories while we can.

Tell me your favorite ways of preserving

treasured Christmas memories.

I am not associated with, nor compensated

by any of these companies.  I just love to

share the ideas and sources that I love.

I will be posting this with

Dishing It and Digging It

Share Your Cup

Metamorphosis Monday

My Life Story

There is so much to celebrate in life, and yet we

remember so little of what happens.  We are admonished

to record in journals what happens in our lives and then

to write our life stories in our church.  

I decided this year would be a great year to get that

published, with my sixtieth birthday.  I can always

write volume two later!  

In 2000, I started writing my life story, and printed it

out.  I used journals, and planning calendars and day timers

that we had kept over the years.  That really helped, as it

gave me specific dates and activities.  Now we keep everything

on our phones, and having had phones and computers crash,

all of that is lost.  I couldn't have produced a lot of what

I was able to write based on memory alone.

I finished the majority of the writing that year,

but continued to add to it.  

Those who follow me regularly know that this past

year and a half I have written and published numerous

life stories of both of my parents, my grandparents,

my aunt, my mother's and father's love letters to

each other, and my mother's short stories.

After doing my parents' books, I realized that the pictures

tell half of the story, so to complete my life story, I had

to dig through all of my pictures, my files, my discs

and add photos to my life story.  That was as much work

as the writing, but I scanned hundreds of pictures into

the computer, and then cropped and edited them so 

they could help tell the story.

I had the good fortune of reading someone's blog

and they recommended using Lulu.com to

publish their blog.  I tried Lulu out before I had

even finished writing my dad's life story.  I wanted

to see how their work was.

Of course, you know I was thrilled.  I could print

one or one hundred, I could edit and add to, I could

receive discount flash sale coupons, I could send others

to their site to order these family history books.

It was as simple as creating a word document and

turning it into a PDF file as you save it on the 

computer.  

The completed book has 520 pages in it.  It started

with 320 before the pictures were added.  Of course, I

would have loved to have made most of the pictures

larger, as they are my favorite part, but it was already

too big.  This book was so large, that I had to

upload it in two parts, but it worked perfectly.

The cost for the book would have been $100, but 

Lulu.com offers one day flash sales throughout the

year - usually 20-30 percent.  On Black Friday, they

offer their best sale, and that was 40 percent, so the

book cost me $60.  I made one for each of my children

and gave them to them as a gift.  As I told my family,

even if you don't read it, look at the pictures - they will

tell a lot of the story.

Start to write your life story now, as people you would

want to talk to and ask questions will be gone.  Your memory

gets overloaded, and you forget.  

As my husband loves to say, "Those who are remembered

are those who are published."  Let generations to come

know who you were and what you believed and did.

What would you give to have written documents

of those who went before you?  Maybe they came

across the plains, or maybe they crossed the ocean.

I hope you get inspired to write your own

life story and publish it.