Ah. . . .this is the time of year that we genealogists start planning ahead for next year. This is when we put our genealogy wish lists together. Wouldn't it be fun for your family to all get together and send you away to a conference for a few days! Instead of a gift card to your local box store, how about a membership to ancestry.com? Let's get creative -- gas gift cards, motel gift cards, a gift card to amazon.com. Or maybe a membership to your local genealogical society. A subscription to your favorite genealogy magazine. There are so many options.
At the same time, you can give something to your family. Remember all those times when you thought -- if only I had asked Grandma about what her life was like when she was growing up. Or "who are all those people in all those pictures"? How about rather than camping out in front of the store with the best bargain this year, you take that time to identify the people you know in all those boxes of pictures in your closet. And on Christmas Eve instead of watching the same holiday movies you have been watching since November 1, get those boxes of pictures out of the closet and show the youngest members of the family the pictures from the past. Lets them see what their moms, grandmothers, and sisters or brothers looked like before they were born.
I am one of the fortunate ones who knew what family holiday parties were like before television. We all got together at the home of the family that was next in line to have the Christmas Party. (See, we all took turns. And when someone got to old to have the party, it passed to the next person in line.) And after dinner, we didn't watch tv. Instead we got out that big box of family pictures and the aunts and uncles told us who everyone was and then they told us all the crazy stories about growing up in our family.
At the same time, you can give something to your family. Remember all those times when you thought -- if only I had asked Grandma about what her life was like when she was growing up. Or "who are all those people in all those pictures"? How about rather than camping out in front of the store with the best bargain this year, you take that time to identify the people you know in all those boxes of pictures in your closet. And on Christmas Eve instead of watching the same holiday movies you have been watching since November 1, get those boxes of pictures out of the closet and show the youngest members of the family the pictures from the past. Lets them see what their moms, grandmothers, and sisters or brothers looked like before they were born.
I am one of the fortunate ones who knew what family holiday parties were like before television. We all got together at the home of the family that was next in line to have the Christmas Party. (See, we all took turns. And when someone got to old to have the party, it passed to the next person in line.) And after dinner, we didn't watch tv. Instead we got out that big box of family pictures and the aunts and uncles told us who everyone was and then they told us all the crazy stories about growing up in our family.
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