Today we stop and remember, honor, spend time and express our love to our fathers on Father’s Day. Fathers are likely receiving gifts, cards or special meals all around the country.
It is often difficult to buy my father a gift. I imagine my father is much like many other men. He is at the stage of life that he wants for little, and what he does want, he purchases it himself. My dad asked us to stop getting him gifts, and he asked for a different type of gift: Father’s Day Letters.
The gift he asked for was simple. He wanted a letter from both of my younger sisters and me. He said life was changing fast, and he wanted something to look back through each year and see how things changed. My sisters and I were not scrapbook makers, but we essentially turned his request into a yearly scrapbook. We have been writing the letters for about 13 years now.
To consider this gift for your own father and for a new father who wants to chronicle the lives of their children, follow these steps.
Scrapbook
Pick up a 10 by 10 scrapbook at a local hardware store with a lot of pages. If the gift is maintained each year, the pages will fill up quickly over the years, especially if there are multiple children in the family. The large square pages allow for a letter to be cut and pasted along with pictures from throughout the year.
Pictures
Scroll through your pictures from the previous year to remember what happened in the previous year. Through your vendor of choice, upload pictures to Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Shutterfly or others to print out a few key pictures. For example, pictures of weddings, babies, new homes, trips and new pets often are included in pictures that are printed for the scrapbook.
Letter
Write a letter chronicling significant events throughout the year. Some years area bigger than others. Some years are better than others, but remembering the bad can often highlight the good. The gift is for my dad, but it is enjoyable for us to look back and remembering the events over the last 13 years. It is easy to forget all that occurs in this life.
Seeing how special this tradition is for my dad, my own kids have started it for my husband. In the early years before they can write on their own, I wrote down things about their year. Other years, I have asked them questions and typed out their words for the letters. My oldest is now almost 9 and will be responsible for her own Father’s Day letters.
Don’t think Father’s Day letters are enough? Consider these gifts that won’t break the bank.
