Most of us have shoe boxes or plastic bins filled with photos from the years of our lives. If we are lucky, we have managed to sort the boxes into various years or decades, and there is some semblance of order to these memories. Amid the photos may be ticket stubs, cards and invitations, and various trinkets that we want to remember but we are not quite shore how to organize. Imagine your children having to wade through it once you are gone. They would spend days sorting through the boxes trying to order the material, making sense of everything, but just cannot get a grip on when it is stored in a box. Chances are some photos are unrecognizable, some events cannot be recalled, and questions about why certain items were saved and others were not. Maybe you stored graduation cards but none from birthdays or anniversaries. Maybe there are ticket stubs from concerts, but you did not save a graduation program. Your kids and grand kids will understand why you held on to certain things. A scrapbook is a great way to help them understand once you are no longer here to explain it. Compiling one now can be a lot of fun and it organizes your memories before it is too late.
Kids and grand kids can even help. By creating a scrapbook, they can remember the event in years to come. Maybe graduation was a milestone for your son or daughter. She can tell you the story, you can record it besides the family graduation photos, and 20 years from now she will remember the day as told in her own words.
You can begin your scrapbook collection back before you had children and grandchildren. Start with the oldest pictures and label the people in each picture. You can include stories surrounding everyone, or include a message directly from them if they are still in your life. Future generations will be thrilled with your efforts and their ability to enjoy the past. There may be stories you forget to share when you are alive, or these stories may not capture the interest of surly teenage grandchildren. However, a few decades from now they will love to learn about your past and their heritage. You can create a scrapbook for each member of the family so they can share them and piece together their common history, or you can create identical scrapbooks with copied photos. Remember to include tickets, brochures or besides photos in the book. Different items such as note cards, swatches of fabric, important documents and family recipes balance the photos in the book and add to the story. Your relatives will truly appreciate your effort in documenting the family history.