When you reach the place where your littles are bigs, you’re grateful for every memory. The good and the bad become part of your cherished family lore. Your one-of-a-kind memories are added to the story you share with generations who passed on your nose, eyebrows, height, and bunions. Bless their hearts. Now that my kiddos are grown up, I realize we were adding stories to our shared history without even knowing it. Making Memories as a family is easier than you might think. Whatever stage you’re in as a mom, being intentional about memory making will enrich the lives of your children and multiply the joys of motherhood.
Meaningful memories are meant to be made. By being thoughtful about making the most of life’s happenings, we give our children a gift. When we’re aware of the simple steps to engraving events on our hearts and minds, we’re better able to be fully present and grateful for our reality. The sweetest memories make us grateful, and the lessons learned from the sour memories make us grateful too. Remembering has a way of cultivating gratitude.
I’ve discovered 3 steps for making memories that a family will cherish.
3R’s of Making Memories as a Family
Repeat
When elements of an event are repeated, they’re embedded in our hearts and minds. By intentionally making the same meals, going the same places, and observing times with the same people, we carve pathways in family life.
We always have macaroni salad and black bottom cake for Father’s Day. For Easter we have Barcroft casserole and hot cross buns. For hiking trips, wedges of salami and Jul bars. We spent years camping at Elkmont and beach combing at St. George. Special friends grew up in our holiday pictures and had parts in the stories of our best adventures. New things are sweet, but familiar things become anchors we cling to. By repeating meals, places, and loved ones, we etch meaningful memories into our story.
Do the best things over and over and they’ll stay with you.
Reflect
We are prone to forget. When God had done great things for His people, He cautioned them about the human tendency not to remember both hardships and blessings. He said that when life is good and all is well, “Take care lest you forget the Lord,” (from Deuteronomy 6:10-12). If we don’t purpose to remember, we’ll forget.
If we’re to take the joys from the good memories and the lessons from the hard ones, we have to talk about the stories of our family journey. Embarrassing moments should be kept for “family only” talks, but most of the rest is fair game to share. Reflect on events around your table, at your holidays, and with your friends. Recall the needs you faced, the provision you experienced, the funny times you laughed over, the adventures you tackled, the disasters you encountered, and the challenges you overcame.
Remember all of it and tell about God’s story written in your lives.
Rejoice
If there’s one thing threatening our ability to create and cling to family memories, it’s a lack of thankfulness. The joy we find in our camping trips can melt away like a boardwalk Italian Ice if we compare it to the cruise our neighbors took. The fond way we think summer sparklers with cousins can dim next to the epic fireworks of our city friends. But our story is our own, and it’s a beautiful story. A story to celebrate for all that makes it ours. Comparison can spoil that. To rejoice in what we have and what we do and who we share it with is to be thankful.
Thankfulness has a way of massaging memories into the very fabric of our family.
This is the perfect time to invest in making meaningful memories for your family. Your story is still being written, and you have the opportunity to etch it into the hearts of your children. As you share sweet remembrances of your common life, your lives will be woven together and connected to those before you and those to come.
Would you share a way that you make memories last in your family?
Let’s make a memory today!
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