Memory Jar- A New Tradition

As we kick off a new year, I thought it would be a great time to share one of my favorite traditions. I can’t wait to share how such a small thing has turned into a treasured part of my year and life! This is totally doable for all stages of life, but I’ve found it especially meaningful as our family has grown. Check it out and let me know in the comments if you will be starting this tradition in your family.

We have 2 glass bowls on our sideboard, one starts empty every January 1st and the other is filled with slips of blank paper. I take 5 minutes 1-2 times a year to pre-cut all of the empty slips of paper. I’m a sucker for beautiful paper, so I use 12x12 scrapbook paper, like this, and my very handy paper cutter to make small squares or rectangles. These do not need to be perfect or even, just enough room for 1-3 sentences is great for our family.

As we go through our days, we write down anything funny, special, exciting, memorable, or sentimental. If you ever have a moment with your children you want to bottle up, write it down and add it to your memory jar. This simple practice is so much more impactful than adding to the hundreds, if not thousands of videos of them on your phone.

This is the perfect place to write about the time you took your kids to the zoo solo and got stuck in the rain, your 2-year-old used lotion to “make her hair soft” and you couldn’t ungrease her hair for days, or even the adorable and odd way your child loves to carry around a potato. All true stories, by the way!

Maybe you are kind of on board with this idea, maybe you aren’t so sure yet. Here is the magical part- we save the papers in our memory jar all year and read them together on New Year’s Eve night. We look forward to this tradition for 52 weeks because it is full of reminiscing, reflecting on so many happy memories, and acknowledging how much we have learned and grown in the last 12 months.

Our kids still go to bed around 7 or 8pm, December 31st included. They are not part of reading the memories just yet, but we keep them out and go over a few together on January 1st and they love it. I’ll give more details below, but we do ask for their input from time to time to be sure we include their persepective in our memory jar. This was the first year that Brinley was able to contribute on her own and she must have done it without us knowing. It was so cool finding her writing on the paper and realizing she finds this ritual important already.

We started this the year we got married and have carried it on for 10 years. When we started this tradition, we didn’t have any children to write about, so we included fun dates, trips, and the many absolutely absurd and funny things that happened in those first few years of marriage. And because we are both very sentimental people, we save the papers from each year in a small plastic bag and put them in our “Memories” storage bin in the basement. 10 years’ worth of memories fit in a shoebox, and we have occasionally pulled out prior years to think back on how full our lives have been.

We mainly try to keep the memory jar positive, but the things we write down are usually not groundbreaking or all that impressive to anyone outside of our family. A trip to the park on a Tuesday might be something worth remembering, especially if it is the first time your child mastered the monkey bars and you want to capture the look of pride plastered all over her face. Anybody else probably doesn’t care, but our memory jar from 2022 included things like “Ellette loves climbing into the refrigerator” and “We made it through 3 days of school before getting sick!”. I’m sure you have similar things about your family, yourself, or your children that you want to remember.

One especially busy year, before we had children, we barely added anything to the memory jar. It was kind of a bummer when it came time to read our entries, but that instance gave us the push we needed to make this a consistent habit. It has become meaningful to both Ryan and myself, so we make sure to add when we can.

Here are some of strategies we’ve used to make sure we have a full jar on New Year’s Eve:

Write down 1 memory a week. I’m definitely not perfect here, but coming up short is still winning in my book! 30/52 doesn’t seem very good until you realize you get to look back on 30 memories you wouldn’t have otherwise. As I’m writing this, I just had the very delayed realization that I can add a reminder on my phone. Hopefully the little chime on my phone every Sunday at 5 pm helps me add to our jar.
Get the kids involved. I only had the headspace to fit this into our routine in the summer, so don’t feel like this has to be an all or none type of thing. Every Sunday after dinner we all contributed something to the memory jar, but I wrote it down for the kids.
Cut the paper ahead of time. This makes it easy to write something down when the mood strikes.
Keep a pen in the jar with the blank paper. Sometimes I have only a minute to write something down before someone needs me and I don’t want to waste that time looking for a pen. The kids know to not touch or move this pen. If your kids still borrow and lose yours, maybe move it out of their reach for now.
Use clear or glass jars. This helps you keep visual tabs on how full or empty the memory jar is.
Use fun, cute, or otherwise patterned or colored paper. We write on the white backside and fold each piece, but I like having a random assortment of beautiful patterns in our jar to look at throughout the year.

Are you ready to capture memories and start a new tradition in your house? If so, do this today. Right now! It doesn't need to be perfect, but I can guarantee you will be thankful you started. Get 2 containers, some paper, and a pen and write down 1 memory from this last week. You can use a mixing bowl for a few days until you find the perfect vase or jar. You can also use blank computer paper if you don’t have any scrapbook paper. Just get in the habit and you will have created a whole new ritual in your house!

I hope this post inspires you to take action and brings some joy to you and your family. Please share this post with friends or family and encourage them to treasure the moments, both big and small, that make up our lives.

Wishing you peace and gentleness as we start a new year,