Last Christmas I got the most astonishing (to me) gift ever. When my husband and I got married in November, 1965, we didn't even have a car so, of course, an engagement ring was out of the question. My new husband was only making $1.05 an hour.  (Minimum wage was $1.30 hr).  He bartered for a car by making a set of kitchen cabinets, and soon found a new job with wages of $1.65 an hour.  We bought our lovely wedding bands 'on time' at $5 per month. He was always going to buy me a diamond ring, but for one reason or another that didn't happen, and the years tumbled by. There was never 'extra money' for such an unneeded item--until last Christmas. I was totally speechless when I opened the 3-diamond ring, 'one diamond for each of our 3 daughters', he said.  I was incredibly surprised and joyful at his thoughtfulness. He said it was time for me to have the diamond that we couldn't afford when we married.  It was so special to me that he still remembered after all those years that he'd promised he'd buy me a diamond--and he did." ~ KM

"I was 8 years old the year Crayola came out with their box of 64 colors. I was consumed with desire! We were living in an inner city neighborhood . Both my parents worked and were frugal, but medical bills kept them on a hamster wheel of poverty. I learned about lowered expectations at a very early age. All I can tell you is that when I saw your question, even 50 years later, I immediately thought of the intoxicating joy I experienced upon opening my box of 64 sharp-tipped , amazingly varied , crayons. I still remember 'discovering' some of the colors that I'd never imagined, Burnt Sienna and Periwinkle, being my two favorites. Thanks for the question and the invitation to revisit such pure, simple  joy." ~ Janice

"This is about one of the best gifts I have ever given and is a very meaningful, inexpensive gift that will last all year!  My sister and I typed out a bunch of one sentence memories for my mom about things that happened in our little family of four from childhood through our years as young adults. Some were funny ones like 'Remember when Grandma backed into our basketball goal? Or, 'Remember the year we tried to make you a dress for Christmas, but it didn’t turn out right and we put the whole thing (pattern and all) in a box and gave it to you anyway?' Some were simple ones like 'Remember when you would get us out of school early to go shopping?' Or 'Remember when we would all ride bicycles to another family’s house on a summer evening and they would bring us back home in their truck because we stayed until after dark?'

  We typed the list of 365 memories (1 for each day of the year) on several sheets of different pastel colored paper, cut it in strips, folded the strips, put them in a plain glass candy jar and tied a pretty pink ribbon around it with something like 'Home Sweet Home' printed on it.  It was so pretty with the pastel colors that, at first, my mom thought it was a jar of candy!  When she realized what it was, she loved it!  The only problem was she wanted to keep reading more memories instead of just one – and she did until we made her stop!  It turns out that that gift gave back to our whole family during that year. It was especially meaningful because my dad was diagnosed with dementia and was starting to forget things. Mama would pull a 'memory' from the jar every day when they were eating lunch together and laugh as they both shared the memory. When I would call her, I would almost always ask her which memory she had read that day. My mom found another jar and put the memories in the second jar as she read them. So we could read memories out of the second jar anytime we wanted to which happened a lot because both jars were always sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. That gift jar of memories gave us many laughs which sometimes led to tears of joy. When other family members would stop by to visit, one of us would always pull out a memory while sitting around the table and pass it around.  It was wonderful to watch them smile and their eyes light up as they shared our memories – especially about our grandparents who have long been gone. We never had a lot of money, but we were rich in having a great mom and dad who truly gave us lots of wonderful memories and simple pleasures. I think the gift showed my mom that we really did remember all the little things she did for us when we were growing up. She actually started over at the beginning of the next year because she said she can’t remember the first memories that she read a year ago!  My sister and I still refer to 'The Memory Jar' as the best gift we ever gave!

  Try making one for a member of your family or a friend. All you need is a jar, a few sheets of paper, and a ribbon. Oh, and lots of memories! Think about vacations, family reunions, holidays, and special occasions and also simple memories of everyday life like family pets, school days, church events and spending time together at home. If you can’t come up with 365 memories, you can do 52 memories with one for each week in the year. If ours had depended on my sister’s memory, that’s what we would have done. She came up with about 75 memories, and I did the rest!  But then, I am two years younger than her. I hope she’s reading this. " ~ Anonymous