3 Meaningful Photo Gifts to Start Now for the Holidays
The best holiday gifts aren’t always bought. Sometimes they’re already sitting in your photo boxes, on your phone, or hanging on the refrigerator.
It may feel far too early to think about holiday gifts when it’s still warm enough for the pool and beach. But if you’ve ever had a wonderful idea for a meaningful photo gift in December, only to realize there’s no time to actually make it, you know why September is the perfect month to start.
Photo and memory gifts take a little more time because the magic isn’t really in the product. It’s in choosing the right photos, finding the stories, adding the names and dates, and deciding what you want the gift to say. Here are three meaningful gifts you can start now and actually have finished before the holiday rush begins.
Create a Photo Book That Tells One Story
You do not have to tackle your entire family history.
In fact, one of the easiest ways to get stuck is to decide you’re going to make a book containing every important photograph your family has ever taken.
Instead, tell one story.
It could be:
Mom and Dad’s 50 years together
Our Family Vacations
Grandma Through the Years
The Grandkids
Our Family Christmases
Our Year Together
The Story of Our Family Home
How to start
Create one folder or album and begin gathering potential photos. Then narrow them down to the ones that actually help tell the story.
And don’t forget the words. Names, dates, places, funny sayings and little family stories are often what transform a beautiful photo book into something that will be treasured by the next generation.
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Turn Children's Artwork Into a Keepsake
If you have children or grandchildren, chances are there is artwork everywhere. It's taped to the refrigerator. Stuffed into drawers. Stored in plastic bins.
And every piece somehow feels too precious to throw away.
Here's the good news: You don't have to keep every piece of paper to preserve this stage of childhood. Choose the artwork that best represents the child and photograph or scan it. Then create an art book organized by child, age or school year. Include the child's name and age and, when you can, ask them to tell you about the picture.
Imagine opening the book years later and reading: "This is our house and that's Mommy. She's purple because purple is my favorite color."
THAT is the part you'll want to remember.
Make it into: An art book, calendar, set of note cards, framed collage or even wrapping paper can turn children's creations into wonderful gifts for parents and grandparents.
Help for Artwork Clutter
If you’d rather have a little help turning that pile of artwork into something you can enjoy, services like Scribbly.art and Artkive make it easy to preserve children’s creations digitally and transform favorite pieces into beautiful keepsakes, including art books.
Give Your Family Its Memories Back
This may be my favorite gift of the three.
Think about what's hiding in your family's closets: Old VHS tapes. Slides. Photo albums. Boxes of photographs. Home movies. Old digital files that no one has looked at in years.
Instead of giving someone another thing, bring some of those memories back to life.
Digitize Mom and Dad's wedding photos. Gather pictures of the grandchildren with their grandparents. Convert old home movies and organize the best ones by year or event.
But here's an important distinction:
Don't simply hand someone a flash drive containing 4,000 unnamed files.
Curate it.
Organize the files. Add dates and names when you know them. Select the memories that tell a story.
The organization and context are what transform a collection of digital files into a meaningful family gift.
Don't Wait Until December
Here's an easy schedule to keep the project from becoming another holiday chore:
SEPTEMBER: Gather Find the photos, artwork, slides, tapes and stories you want to use.
OCTOBER: Create Scan, digitize, select photos, write captions and begin designing.
NOVEMBER: Order Proofread everything, place your orders and leave yourself time for corrections and shipping.
Start With the Photos You Already Have
Before you can create a beautiful photo gift, sometimes you have to find the photographs buried inside the boxes. That's exactly why I created DIG YOUR PHOTOS!™. It's a step-by-step system designed to help you sort and organize your printed photos without feeling like you have to tackle your entire collection at once. And if a holiday photo book is your goal, you don't need to organize everything first.
Start by finding the photos that tell this particular story.
One Last Thought
The best thing about a memory gift is what happens after it's opened.
People start talking.
"Look how young Dad was!"
"I remember that house!"
"Whatever happened to that dog?"
"I can't believe you still had this!"
That's when the gift becomes more than a book, a photograph or a video.
