Memory Jar for Grandma

I like your idea. I know you said it's a pretty finished idea, but I have another one. When my husbands grandmother was living, for her 85th birthday, her 9 children and 36 grandchildren along with spouses did a memory "tree". Since it's christmas time maybe you could put them on a small fake tree or even small real tree like ornaments. Also, when she passed away the following year, one of her daughters copied all the memories that had been written along with old recipes of hers and put them in a scrapbook. Then she made color copies for everyone. Just thought I'd share!

Oh, and one more thing...Grammy used to make mittens every year for her children and then grandchildren. So, all the memories were written on mitten shaped cut outs. Maybe there is a special type/shape of cut out you could use to have all your family write their memories on?

I'd tie a bow/string/strip of fabric around the jar (maybe on the shiny part of the lid too) .... using fabric or a string that has meaning to her - ie: My grandma grew up during the depression so she saves all scraps of fabric. Growing up, she used those scraps for quilts, so if I could find a scrap of fabric from her old dress or my Papa's old coveralls to decorate the jar, she would love it.

We do this every year. Usually at thanksgiving I hand out paper and pencils. It is fun to have the smaller children do it. It's hard for the older adults to get the point about it fitting on a small pc of paper. my inlaws for the longest time thought they had to fill up a whole sheet. So I started cutting the paper into smaller slips lol. but you will have everyone laughing and crying. ask each person two write a couple of memories. both happy and poignant. the picture thing is good. We just wrapped a big bow around it.

on a different note along the same lines. cut strips of construction paper like you would use for the kids to make paper chains. have each person write their favorite christmas memory down on a strip (some like to do a bunch of strips) make a chain and on christmas day or whenever you all get together take the chain apart one link at a time and remember the event. don't rush it. talk, laugh, cry, hug etc. it will become a favorite. this is something we did in the daycare but it carried over into the regular family life also

What a thoughtful gift!!!!

how about printing photo/collage on adhesive paper, and attaching that to the jar. Barring that, you could always take 'tab labels' and put (either in hand-writing or computer generated) quotes from Bible, or about the wealth of memory, importance of family. If there are littles involved, they could draw pictures of flowers, grandma, home, etc. and you could make the outside of the jar essentially be a collage of things that g'ma values.