Acquiring Memories
As parents, it is easy to measure our love by what we provide. Birthdays become bigger. Christmas lists become longer. We want to give our children something they will remember.
Over the past several years, our family has been thinking differently.
Instead of asking, "What should we buy?" we have started asking, "What can we do together?"
That simple shift has changed the conversation. Some of the best gifts we have planned this year are not wrapped in paper. They are wrapped in time.
A family “going to the movies” with the music score played live by the symphony. A mother and daughter spending a day getting manicures and enjoying lunch together. A father and son traveling to an unrelated football game hundreds of miles away just because it is a legendary match-up or stadium. Planning and going to a NHL hockey game because for some unknown reason the son loves a certain team (no idea where this came from). A father and daughter sharing season tickets to our local university volleyball team, creating a standing appointment throughout the season to cheer, laugh, and spend a few uninterrupted hours together.
None of those experiences will sit on a shelf. None of them will eventually end up in a closet, a garage sale, or a donation box. Instead, they become stories.
Years from now, I doubt anyone will remember which electronic gadget was opened on Christmas morning or which sweater was under the tree. They will remember the road trip. They will remember laughing during a terrible restaurant meal. They will remember getting caught in the rain walking back to the car after the game. They will remember the conversations that happened because there were no distractions.
Experiences have a way of appreciating in value.
The first memory creates the second. Then comes the tradition. Before long, the event itself becomes less important than the expectation that, once again, we will spend time together.
Our lives are already crowded with possessions. Most of us do not need another thing. What we often need is another memory.
Time together has become one of the rarest gifts we can give each other. Schedules compete with relationships. Phones compete with conversations. Work competes with family. Choosing to set aside a day, a weekend, or even an evening says something much more meaningful than buying another package.
It says, "You are worth my time." That message lasts.
I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with giving gifts. There is joy in generosity. There is excitement in opening a present. But I am increasingly convinced that the greatest gifts are those that cannot be unwrapped.
They can only be experienced.
Long after the newness of another purchase fades, memories continue to grow richer. They are retold around dinner tables. They become family jokes. They connect generations. The older I get, the more I believe our lives are measured less by what we accumulated and more by the moments we shared.
Those moments become our real inheritance. And that is a gift worth giving.
