Filed under: Publish your stories! | Tags: book design, book publishing, Christmas gifts, digital design, family gifts, gift giving, heritage makers, making books, stocking stuffers
I am not a shopper. I have to do it, we have a very large family, we go through gallons of milk and many loaves of bread every week. Little bodies grow and clothing needs to be replaced. We need school supplies…. life requires me to shop.
As we approach the Holidays I just feel overwhelmed. I love to give gifts. My love language though is more doing or serving or working for them. So I have 2 roadblocks to gift giving. I can’t wrap up what I love to give and I have to shop! Argh.
Last year after Christmas I discovered my passion. Creating story books. I have created baby books, little quite books with my kids as the stars, genealogy books, family yearbooks, playing cards, posters, graduation cards…. I have been creating and giving in a way that I love! I have discovered that my gifts are much loved and treasured ( no longer discarded and forgotten). I have gotten requests. My daughter who went to college this year asked for me to create something for her to see her family daily. My mother wants to know what is going on with her grandkids. She loves the albums with stories about each grandchild. My little guys LOVE their baby albums. My middle guys are so excited when they see me on the computer creating their baby books.
I have decided that the difference is my ‘come from’. I love designing, I love serving, I love my family with an intensity that hurts sometimes. When those components combine I am truly giving something from my heart. Those are gifts that are treasured.
This year I have scanned in all the family photos that I could get my hands on and I am organizing them by family. Everyone related to my side and everyone related to David’s side. I am creating a dvd of all of the family photos (I have some incredible generational photos that none of them have ever seen). I have spent a year scanning and preparing. I am working on my childhood story…Before I was your mother for my kids. I also have been working with my father-in-law to get his story into print. I also have designed some awesome posters for the kids. For our children these gifts tend to be treasured stocking stuffers. For our extended family they are treasured gifts. These books and gifts are of excellent quality, I am not handing them a cut and paste pile of papers. I am not bagging on traditional scrapbooking. If I had the ability and love of it my traditional scrapbook gifts would be of excellent quality. I am just completely a clod with scrapbooking. I love designing but it won’t translate to traditional scrapbooking. I am just filled with gratitude this season that I am not tromping through the malls trying to find a trinket, gadget or widget that my parents don’t have and they will likely not need or even want. I am spending my precious time pouring over memories, bringing stories to life, connecting our family generations back. Bringing a sense of connection, purpose and mission to those I love. Because of the new template gallery I was able to finish a book for a “great” grandma with story in 3 hours.
I am actually excited for this holiday season. I have always loved Christmas, it represents all that is great in humanity but I have always DREADED the shopping experience.
Have a beautiful Holiday Season. Give from your heart. It doesn’t have to mean extreme expense. It probably means effort because that is what we do for those we love. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts with you. If you want to visit my website and see what lights my fire you will find it at www.CreatingForever.com
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