Treasure your memories with a memory box

In our home there is a very special box.

It’s a large chest made of Silky Oak and over 60 years ago, it was a young girl’s Glory Box. The young girl was my maternal grandmother and her 4 brothers handcrafted the box for her. For her sweet sixteenth family and friends endowed her with gifts of linen, doilies, tatting, napkins and cutlery – in readiness for the day she off and got married.

I digress (sorry). The point is that we now have the box at home and we’re creating our own special memories with it. My children call it the Memory Box.

On purpose it’s well within reach. In fact, it’s our coffee table. So lifting the lid and exploring the contents is easy.

Our memory box is our own version of the attic or the basement. A place where we store snippets of lives racing by so that at any time we can revisit, recall and rejoice.

Inside our memory box you’ll find ultrasounds, baby cards, first locks of hair, 4 tiny pairs of shoes, a plaster cast of a tiny foot, the one dummy that somehow managed to escape the dummy fairy, a selection of each child’s most memorable outfits, a few first drawings and a random assortment of collectibles.

It doesn’t matter what goes in – it’s just about creating a spot where we can either sit as a family and remember (or I can sit on my own and bawl my eyes out for the children that are growing way too fast).

I love that my children respect the contents of our memory box above all else. It seems that a peace settles over them as they lift the lid and they are enthralled as they look at photos together and recall memories in accordance with the item they are looking at.

If you don’t have a memory box, I urge you to start one today. You could devote a cardboard box per child, a plastic storage container … whatever. As long as it becomes the resting place for all things special that will allow you to spend quiet time remembering.

Do you have a tradition of saving special treasures in a special place? What precious memory just popped into your head as you read this?

118 Comments

- - Frankiielot said
  - 17 Jul 2022
    7:05 pm
Memory boxes are the best!
We have one for each of our kids, mostly full of their artworks and things they’ve made. I’ve bought a tooth collection box for when they start to lose teeth and I’ve kept several pairs of ballet shoes and umbilical cords lol.

- - mom268263 said
  - 30 Nov 2020
    5:50 am
Memory boxes are great, most people are so happy when they discover a forgotten something from their childhood, and this will be full of memories.

- - mom71809 said
  - 02 May 2015
    7:23 pm
Beautiful story! I’ve been trying to think of a storage idea for all my children’s treasures. Growing up we had a box but I wasn’t allowed in it until I was older, it was a metal ex military box – I would LOVE a silky oak box with this family history!

- - sisterhood27 said
  - 28 Aug 2014
    4:44 pm
Thanks for a great article I will now start going through my things to put in my memory box which I will start now

- - neddie said
  - 09 Aug 2014
    12:40 pm
Not only that I think it’s nice as a mum to look back and remember the little things we all wish that our kids weren’t in such a hurry to grow up! They were so cute little!

- - pakeko said
  - 04 Aug 2014
    5:23 pm
All off my kids have a treasure box, I grew up knowing very little about my life as a child, I am not going to let that happen to my kids

- - maureen3 said
  - 18 Jul 2014
    4:25 pm
An interesting read thanks for sharing

- - jessmumof2 said
  - 07 Jun 2014
    5:57 pm
I must create this for my home again my last one was lost in a fire now I take photos on my mobile of my precious memories 🙁

- - mom57522 said
  - 30 May 2014
    6:16 pm
Both my girls have a baby box and we keep an art folder

- - shazzbot said
  - 12 Apr 2014
    9:32 am
I love that picture. What a great idea, thanks for sharing.

- - mumzee said
  - 06 Apr 2014
    7:54 pm
What a lovely idea!

- - yyon4699 said
  - 29 Mar 2014
    1:26 pm
aww… i love collecting ideas like this!

- - alioop said
  - 25 Mar 2014
    2:31 pm
Definitely s great idea. For a long time I’ve been meaning to go to spotlight to make my own special memory box

- - angel_mon said
  - 18 Mar 2014
    12:53 am
what a beautiful and inspirational idea, great way for family to reconnect

- - koloababe4 said
  - 15 Mar 2014
    11:02 pm
Beautiful idea have sort of done this

- - angelas2013 said
  - 26 Feb 2014
    11:29 pm
I love this idea 🙂 we have a small one of these for each of our boys so far, mainly with their first hospital memorabilia, but it really would be nice to have one that told the whole families story collectively as well.

- - memo said
  - 12 Feb 2014
    12:16 pm
A wonderful idea, children grow up so fast, memories fade. A trip down memory lane on a rainy afternoon is wonderful, sharing the past with the future, your children.

- - mle00 said
  - 05 Feb 2014
    9:50 pm
Sound like a lovely idea, I hate throwing out little sentimental bits and peices…needs to get me a box!

- - bubble6369 said
  - 17 Jan 2014
    12:48 am
I have kept little bits as my daughter grows as one day I hope to place them all in a glory box

- - meimei said
  - 12 Jan 2014
    12:16 pm
Thank you for sharing. Interesting article to read 🙂