Hello!

In our home there is a very special box.

It’s a large chest made of Silky Oak and over 60 years ago, it was a young girl’s Glory Box.  The young girl was my maternal grandmother and her 4 brothers handcrafted the box for her. For her sweet sixteenth family and friends endowed her with gifts of linen, doilies, tatting, napkins and cutlery – in readiness for the day she off and got married.

I digress (sorry).  The point is that we now have the box at home and we’re creating our own special memories with it.  My children call it the Memory Box.

On purpose it’s well within reach.  In fact, it’s our coffee table.  So lifting the lid and exploring the contents is easy.

Our memory box is our own version of the attic or the basement.  A place where we store snippets of lives racing by so that at any time we can revisit, recall and rejoice.

Inside our memory box you’ll find ultrasounds, baby cards, first locks of hair, 4 tiny pairs of shoes, a plaster cast of a tiny foot, the one dummy that somehow managed to escape the dummy fairy, a selection of each child’s most memorable outfits, a few first drawings and a random assortment of collectibles.

It doesn’t matter what goes in – it’s just about creating a spot where we can either sit as a family and remember (or I can sit on my own and bawl my eyes out for the children that are growing way too fast).

I love that my children respect the contents of our memory box above all else.  It seems that a peace settles over them as they lift the lid and they are enthralled as they look at photos together and recall memories in accordance with the item they are looking at.

If you don’t have a memory box, I urge you to start one today.  You could devote a cardboard box per child, a plastic storage container … whatever.  As long as it becomes the resting place for all things special that will allow you to spend quiet time remembering.

Do you have a tradition of saving special treasures in a special place? What precious memory just popped into your head as you read this?

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  • Memory boxes are the best!
    We have one for each of our kids, mostly full of their artworks and things they’ve made. I’ve bought a tooth collection box for when they start to lose teeth and I’ve kept several pairs of ballet shoes and umbilical cords lol.

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  • Memory boxes are great, most people are so happy when they discover a forgotten something from their childhood, and this will be full of memories.

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  • Beautiful story! I’ve been trying to think of a storage idea for all my children’s treasures. Growing up we had a box but I wasn’t allowed in it until I was older, it was a metal ex military box – I would LOVE a silky oak box with this family history!

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  • Thanks for a great article I will now start going through my things to put in my memory box which I will start now

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  • Not only that I think it’s nice as a mum to look back and remember the little things we all wish that our kids weren’t in such a hurry to grow up! They were so cute little!

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  • All off my kids have a treasure box, I grew up knowing very little about my life as a child, I am not going to let that happen to my kids

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  • An interesting read thanks for sharing

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  • I must create this for my home again my last one was lost in a fire now I take photos on my mobile of my precious memories :(

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  • Both my girls have a baby box and we keep an art folder

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  • I love that picture. What a great idea, thanks for sharing.

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  • What a lovely idea!

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  • aww… i love collecting ideas like this!

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  • Definitely s great idea. For a long time I’ve been meaning to go to spotlight to make my own special memory box

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  • what a beautiful and inspirational idea, great way for family to reconnect

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  • Beautiful idea have sort of done this

    Reply

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