Pass It On

One of the simplest heritages and traditions you can leave for your children is the passing down of trades or skills. You will instill something worthwhile in your child as they will feel pride in knowing how to accomplish something as well as be able to use it to possibly be generous and charitable to others.


There are many skills and trades that you can pass down. Let the following list guide you as you think about what part of you that you can share with your children.



*Baking/Cooking (family recipes)

*Beading and crafting

*Woodworking

*Gardening and caring for plants

*Scrapbooking

*Writing

*Sewing

*Working on cars (auto mechanics)

*Health and wellness (fitness, nutrition)

*Antiques

*Sports

*Painting/Drawing/Sketching

*Electronics – video editing, etc.

*Photography

*Music

*Family History

*The art of decorating

*Organization skills

*Faith

Life On Tape

I think everyone’s life should be on video tape. You see, when you’re on video tape you either a) act nicer because you know your actions are being recorded, or b) are shown how you truly look and act.

We’ve been watching a lot of home movies lately. Originally, my husband was editing a lot of our home movies and putting them to music on DVD. So he’d only take the best scenes or edit out things. But then life happened and like we all do on projects, he got behind. So he purchased a family gift for us this year where he has been loading all of our old video onto a hardrive which then can be shown with this box converting thing on our TV. (Don’t ask me how it all works – I just know it DOES!)

The things is – all of our home videos are unedited now. Yep. Unedited. Some may get boring in parts but the thing I’ve noticed the most? The way we act and sound. So many times we’d say, “Well, we can edit that part out” thinking that no one would hear it. And sometimes, yes, a bad attitude would get on tape. Even mine.

It can be very humbling to see or hear yourself act or say something that isn’t kind or a little gruff. Of course we never want anyone to see us act that way! But the thing is, we’re the ones who did it. So we should own up to it.

Watching myself is teaching me how I may appear to others. And if I don’t want anyone to see or hear me in a certain manner, then I shouldn’t act or say those things!

Life is life. We’re not going to be perfect all of the time. But the very least we can do is to be decent. At times we may need to be gracious, or forgiving – maybe laugh at something instead of getting angry.

Just because we don’t see every moment of our life rerecorded on tape doesn’t mean God can’t. It’s good to remember that.

Family Directory

Keeping in touch with family members is an important part in establishing a family legacy. Sometimes that can be difficult when family members start moving to different areas and the genealogy branches start spreading out.

For the person who likes to keep track of everyone and stay in touch; a Family Directory might be just the thing you want to put together. You would start with the top of the genealogy tree; your grandparents, if they are still living.

Copy a couple of photos - maybe from years gone by and a more recent one of today so people can recognize and correlate faces and names together. Then list their birthdays, anniversary, address, phone number and any other information you feel is relevant. Continue to do this for cousins, aunts, uncles, children, and grandchildren and so on until you have everyone compiled into the Directory.

What fun it will be to track everyone down and get pictures to insert into the book! I think it would be even more fun to hand one of these out to everyone in the family (you could gather a few dollars for expenses if necessary) - a reunion would be just the occasion to deliver these special books.

It might take awhile to finish, but worth the effort to have all of your relatives at your fingertips.