The most meaningful gift from grandparents to grandchildren is not something they will outgrow. It is your story – who you were before you were their grandparent, told in your own words and kept somewhere they can find it in thirty years' time. Your grandchildren know you as you are now. Almost none of them know you at nineteen, or what you were frightened of, or how you met the person who made their parent possible. That is the one thing no shop sells and nobody else can give. It is also a gift you can start this Christmas and keep giving for months, because it does not have to be finished to be given. What goes under the tree can be a promise and a first chapter. The book follows when the story is told.
In brief
- Your own life story is the one gift for grandchildren that nobody else can give, and that gains value as they get older.
- It does not need to be finished by Christmas – give the promise and a first chapter now, and the book when it is done.
- Ask each grandchild for one question they want answered, and build a chapter around them.
- Write it so an eight-year-old can enjoy it now and a thirty-eight-year-old can understand it later.
- You do not need to be a writer: speaking your story is often easier and truer than writing it.
Why your story is the most meaningful gift for grandchildren
Most gifts for grandchildren have a natural shelf life. Toys are outgrown, clothes are outgrown, money is spent. A story does the opposite. A ten-year-old will enjoy the part about the bicycle you crashed into the vicar's hedge. The same person at thirty-five, with children of their own, will read the chapter about the year you nearly emigrated and understand it completely differently.
There is research behind the instinct, too. Psychologists at Emory University found that children who knew more of their family's stories – including the difficult ones – showed higher self-esteem and resilience than those who knew little. The stories that mattered most were the ones about getting through something, not the polished successes.
And there is the plainer reason. Many people only realise how little they knew about a grandparent after it is too late to ask. Grandchildren rarely think to ask while they have the chance. A life story answers the questions before they know they have them.
The problem with Christmas: it takes longer than December
A life story is not a weekend job. Told properly, it usually takes a few months, and some people take a year. So if you begin in October or November, it will not be a finished book on Christmas morning – and it does not need to be.
The better gift is the beginning, handed over well. What lands on the day can be:
- A letter to each grandchild saying what you are doing and why you are doing it for them.
- A first chapter, printed out or read aloud after lunch. A short one is fine. The house you grew up in is a good place to start.
- A promise with a shape: there will be a dozen or so chapters, and you will each get the book when they are done.
This version has something a finished book does not. It turns the story into a conversation that runs through the whole of the next year, with grandchildren asking what happens next.
How to begin your own story as a gift
Ask each grandchild for one question
Before you write a word, ask each grandchild – at Christmas, or on a call beforehand – for the one thing they would most like to know about your life. Children ask brilliant questions. Did you ever get in trouble at school? What was the worst thing you ever ate? Were you scared when you had Mum?
Their questions do two things. They tell you what they actually want to read, which is rarely what adults assume. And they make each grandchild part of the book. A chapter called Your questions – every one answered, with their names beside them – will be the first thing they turn to.
Write for two ages at once
The book has two readers: the child who opens it now, and the adult they will become. Write clearly and concretely enough for the first – what the kitchen smelled like, what you were paid for your first job, what you did on a Saturday – and honestly enough for the second. You do not have to include everything. But the harder years, told with care, are usually the parts that mean most later.
Start with a place, not with your birth
Beginning at the beginning is the fastest way to stall. Start with somewhere you remember well – a house, a school, a street – and let the story move outward from there. How to write your life story for your grandchildren goes further into the craft, and these life story prompts will get you past a blank page on the days you need them.
Speak it if writing feels like a chore
Many people who would never sit down to write a memoir can talk about their life for hours. Your spoken voice is also closer to how your grandchildren hear you – the phrases you always use, the way you tell a joke. Recording your story and having it shaped into chapters, which you then read and correct, keeps it sounding like you rather than like a school essay.
Giving it when it is finished
When the last chapter is done, there is a second gift-giving moment, and for many families it is the bigger one. A book for each grandchild, with a short handwritten line inside the cover, is the kind of thing that stays on a shelf for the rest of their lives.
People often time this to an occasion of their own. A life story turns up on so many lists of meaningful 70th birthday gift ideas for exactly this reason – though there is a certain satisfaction in being the one who gives it, rather than waiting to be given it.
How Chronicle fits
Chronicle is built for people telling their own story. You work through guided conversations a chapter at a time, speaking or typing, at whatever pace suits you. Each chapter is drafted from what you actually said, and nothing goes in the book until you have read it and approved it. The chapters can be renamed, added to or removed – so Your questions can have a chapter of its own.
You can share a chapter draft with whoever you like, at any stage – which is what makes the first-chapter-at-Christmas idea practical. When every chapter is finished, you get a full-colour digital edition to share with the whole family, and Memoir and Heirloom are printed and bound in the UK, with additional copies for each grandchild.
Questions grandparents ask
Am I too old to start?
No. There is no age at which your story stops being worth telling, and you do not need to have written anything longer than a letter. If typing is a nuisance, speak it instead.
What if my life has been ordinary?
That is what grandchildren want most. The price of a bus fare, what school dinners were like, how you spent a Sunday – these details are history to them, and nobody else can supply them.
Should I include the difficult parts?
You decide. Many grandparents include hard years in a gentle, honest way, because those are the stories that show how a life was actually lived. Anything you would rather keep private can simply stay out.
A gift that starts on the day
Most presents are finished the moment they are opened. This one begins there. If you would like to see how telling your own story works in practice, start with your story – there is no deadline, and the first chapter is the only one you need by Christmas.