What could you include in a This is Your Life book?
13 things you could include in a 'This is your life' book
Here are some ideas!
- Their early family days - pictures of them as a baby, then a toddler
- Their school days with pictures of them in their uniform if they had one. Get in touch with old school friends if you can. Ask them to send a memory of your loved one to you - may be some mischief they got up to, something they remember about them at the time
- Life after school - what did the recipient do next? (I'll tell you, this is a great way to find out a lot of stuff about them that you didn't know.)
- Their family - pictures of her parents, grandparents, family homes & pets
- Their hobbies - we had a picture of my Mum in her garden, another on a golf course, for her book, for example
- Get their friends to write notes of their memories or just short letters to wish them a happy birthday
- A family photo of you all - it doesn't need to be formal. Get one of just a simple natural family get together.
- Family holidays you've enjoyed together, trips they've taken on their own or with their partner
- Successes they've had, in sport, work, charity activities - anything you can think of
- Get the family pets to write their own memories as their carer or occasional carer.
- You could include photos of places where they've lived
- Pictures of them enjoying their favourite hobbies & interests
- You could do a theme book, taking a particular interest they have and putting in photos of that, so they have a book of memories to look back on of them doing their favourite thing
If this sounds like a lot of work, well, you're right. And I'll tell you, it is SO worth it. We did such a book for my Mum for her 70th. (The secrecy was amazing - she had absolutely no idea what we were doing...) We had people send letters, cards, photos, memories, etc etc going right back to Mum's old class mates. We dug through old family photos, spoke to her old school friends, made contact with folk we hadn't spoken to for ages.
This "This Is Your Life Memory Book Or Scrapbook"
is available from Not on the High Street from £24.00.
A great present to celebrate a special birthday!
We thought about how she liked to spend her time, her sport, her love of nature and gardening, travel and being social. We looked at her charity work, her days as a teacher, even when she went to training college. It was quite a research project!
And until a few years ago, Mum was still looking through it (about 20 years later!) and adding to it, or just sliding photos in it.
