Bell Family Storybook

This Christmas my immediate family (mom, siblings and myself) agreed to do away with all material gift giving and write stories instead (inspired by a family tradition of Holly's in-laws). Every year each person writes a true story about something from their life as their present to everyone else. It can be happy or sad, light and humorous or deep and reflective, it can be about something from childhood or something that happened yesterday. There is no length requirement...just as long as we need to share the details of the memory.

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Here's my 3 ring binder with this year's stories.

We decided to print out our stories and send them by mail to one another. We marked the envelopes with "Do not open until Christmas"...it was fun to still have something to open on Christmas morning.

Here's my 2009 Christmas story...click to enlarge.

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As we add to our collection each year I expect our "Bell Family Storybooks" will become treasures that we will cherish and revisit over and over.