“What do you get the person who has everything?” – it is an age-old question for a reason. By the time you’re ready to get a gift for your grandparents on your own, you have probably gotten them every gift you can think of or they would have gotten it for themselves. You don’t want to get them the latest gadget because they may not have a use for it or even know how to use it.
You want to come up with something that is more interesting that a gift card or another “thing” for their house. And the search is only made harder this year if you're not be able to give them their gift in person.
Rather than trying to find something they will love the moment they get it and then immediately forget about it, why not get your grandparent something they will truly remember. In fact, why not give them the gift of shared memories? With Quilted, you can give your grandparent a gift that brings you and your grandparents closer together, and you can stitch it together any way you like.
Send Your Memories to Your Grandparents
Living far away from your grandparents makes the time you do get to spend with them all the more important. Sometimes that distance makes it difficult to know what stories they want to hear, make you feel less connected, and when you do get to visit you never know where to start to fill them in on everything that has happened.
You want to be able to share your memories of the year with them, let them know what all you’ve been up to. There are any number of ways to share those memories: you could make a calendar of family photos, you could make a scrapbook, you could send them a digital picture frame that you upload photos to as you take them. But all of those options miss a big part of . They don’t really let you share your voice, tell the story of where the photo was taken in your own words.
With Quilted, you can give your grandparent a gift that is more meaningful than a custom mug, more personalized than a blanket with their name on it, and as special as something handmade. Quilted lets you your loved ones share favorite memories of the year with our Family Holiday Movie. If you don’t know how to start sharing, Quilted has questions built in that can help you get the ball rolling.
Hear Their Stories
Telling stories is one of the oldest forms of recording history. Every family has them, whether they be as impactful as how Grandma and Grandpa met or as benign as that time Grandpa got the family lost and they missed a football game. Plenty of studies have been done around the importance of sharing our stories, whether to improve one’s confidence and memory, to feel more connected with the world, or simply to make us feel more like ourselves and more a part our family.
Yet as our grandparents get older, some of those stories can fall away. Sometimes it’s because they just don’t want to share anymore. Sometimes it’s because they have their go-to tales that they prefer to talk about. Sometimes it’s because they just can’t tell their stories anymore. But knowing the stories of our elders is what makes us human and reminds us of where we came from. It is good for us, and it is even better for them (as storytelling has been found to help older people with dementia, depression, and general brain health).
Yet asking our grandparents to tell us a story can feel awkward and childish, and asking them to sit down and dig into a bunch of questions can feel more like an interrogation than simply trying to learn. If your grandfather isn’t much for journaling, then you may not have anything recorded to look back on. And if your grandmother hasn’t been much for pictures, it may be awkward to get a conversation kickstarted.
Memories are not in the brain, they are in the heart. – Frank Camacho, journalist
You want to hear their stories so you have something to hold on to. And you want them to be active in sharing their life with you. That’s where having a way to get your grandparent to share their story in an open way, a way that gets them excited to share, is important. Most importantly, you want a way to document what they share so you can go back to it. That’s where Quilted comes in.
With the “Legacy” gift, your grandparents can share their stories, their way, on their time. With helpful reminders and questions provided by professional interviewers and journalists, you can hear stories you may have never thought to ask about. You can add your own questions to make sure that you have that one tale you always love to hear. Most importantly, you are getting the story told directly from your grandparent, not secondhand.
Hearing the stories of your grandparents is something that can never go out of style, never get old, and is cherished for years to come, (even when we may heard the same story 100 times). Instead of giving your grandmother or grandfather something that just personalized, give them something personal.
Give them the gift that brings you closer together: the gift of memories and documenting their legacy. Whether it is the Legacy gift that is perfect even at the last-minute, or a completed gift that you and your family put together to share through the Memories with Mom or Dad package, give your grandparents a gift that shows them how much you love them and appreciate their stories. By giving them Quilted, you are bringing together generations of stories that will continue through and beyond you. Don’t wait for the right time to sit and write everything down, start capturing those memories now. Let Quilted help you make the perfect gift for your grandparent this holiday season, and for all time.