Friday 30 December 2011

Memories

Another year ended huh? I bet it’s been a doozy. You had ups. You had downs. You had victories. You had disappointments.

And so did your kids.

So, how will each of you remember it? Will you remember it? What will mark the completion of a season, what will cement the lessons learned from its events, what will bring healing from its conflicts and pains?

Sometime late in the year, I heard someone mention the idea of capturing each year’s events and themes in a kind of family history. It got me thinking…

The Aldin family could certainly benefit from such a tradition.

And so the idea I came up with a few years ago was to keep a permanent record of the  years in the form of a ‘book’. For all I know, it’s been done before. But not by our family. And hey, it only lasted a couple of years :) ... but your family might make it work better. (I think I waited til the kids were too old to get caught up in the idea).

Each of us gets to answer the questions below, and choose two digital photos that represent our favourite memories of the year just gone. Then on New Year’s Eve, we’ll read our answers and “talk story” about 2011, before placing them in the book.

The questions can be very simple:
  • My favourite movie this year:
  • I really enjoyed going to the __________ because _____________________.
  • Three cool things about my birthday:
  • My holiday:
  • A cool thing that God did:
  • My achievements:
  • The hardest thing I had to do was…
  • Something I wish didn’t happen:
  • A funny thing I heard:
2011 has been an incredibly emotional year for us, full of the extremes of  frustration and celebration, conflict and making new friends, villains and heroes, kids celebrating milestones and my wife and I both changing jobs, etc etc. What was yours like? And do you have a family tradition to close out the year and leave a record for your kids for later ?

2 comments:

  1. 2011 was a rough year for me. There were some highlights, my son learned to ride a bike. We had a memorable vacation. My son started kindergarten and is fascinated with reading and learning. I continued my own education, I'm three classes away from a new degree.

    We don't have any formal recap of the year, I really like your book idea. The closest we do, is make a trip to a huge Christmas store and help my son pick out a new ornament for the tree that somewhat summarizes his interests and passions for the year. So that when he gets olde and has a tree of his own, he will have 18 ornaments to add to it that represent his youth.

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  2. Jonathan, I think that's a rich and beautiful tradition. Love it.

    So glad he's enjoying learning and growing up fit and strong. Hope 2012 is a fantastic year for all of you.

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