Fill out This Printable for a One-of-a-Kind Gift Your Loved One Will Treasure

Inside: Go ahead and take all those Christmas presents back to the store because THIS is the perfect gift. It’s free, it’s easy, and your loved ones will adore it.

We haven’t raked the leaves in our yard since last December.

Today, with our favorite Christmas playlist on in the background, we finally tackled it. A few of the interesting things we found: a cute baby snake, a Target receipt, and my oldest’s missing mitten from last winter. Clearly, it was time.

Approximately 5.2 minutes into the raking, I peered over the baby strapped to my chest to see how big a pile I’d made. I’ve changed diapers more substantial than my sad little pile of leaves.

I looked up to the rest of the yard. Absolutely COVERED in leaves. And I sighed.

Ty looked up from his (much more impressive) pile. “What’s up?”

“Are we doing the whole yard today?” I asked.

“I was thinking about it. Do you need to work on something else?”

“Well, it’s just that we have a long list of stuff to do today,” I whined.

“Like what?”

I blinked. “I don’t know, it just feels like we had a long list.”

He walked up to kiss me on the cheek. “I’m good out here if you want to run in and work on something else. But I love having you out here with me.”

Bonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, get a free printable you can fill out to create a one-of-a-kind gift that your loved one will treasure forever.

Then I Realized My Mistake

I set my rake against a tree trunk and headed inside to check Evernote:

• Pay bills
• Catch up on email
• Clip the cats’ nails again, even though it feels like we just finished
• …

In other words, just stuff. Random stuff. Nothing pressing.

I went back outside and picked up the rake. Ty was using the leaf vacuum and didn’t see me.

I raked and raked and raked.

My pile? Now the size of a small cat.

Bailey leaned her head back to look up at me. The sun hit those gorgeous blue eyes.

I kissed her forehead.

The vacuum switched off and Ty walked up to me. A big smile.

“You came back,” he said.

“You gotta remind me.”

He cocked his head. “Of what?”

“This,” I said. “This is what matters. Not the list. It’s 60 degrees and a beautiful Sunday in December, and I’m outside with my little family getting our house ready for Christmas.”

He grinned.

And we went back to work. Together.

Two Things You Should Know

I wanted to share this little snippet from my Sunday for two reasons:

1. Did you see how I turned around my whiny stressed-out-ness and blamed it on Ty? Yeah, I’m pretty impressive.
2. Making memories. Living in the moment. Enjoying the journey. Whatever you want to call it, that whole idea tends to fall by the wayside this time of year.

The second is something I have to remind myself of ALL THE TIME. Right now, it feels like I’m catching myself hourly.

I get so wrapped up in The List and fitting in as much holiday cheer as possible that I forget to just be. Live. Enjoy this gift of a beautiful, healthy, hilarious, crazy family.

Related: 10 Unique Stocking Stuffers for Girls That Will Delight Your Kids {Printable}

Here’s the Perfect Gift This Holiday Season

Which brings me to this: About a week ago, I got an early Christmas present. An email from my friend Amanda.

It was completely unexpected, and completely wonderful.

There was no iTunes gift code inside. No promise of baked goods.

Just a simple letter, thanking me for how I’d touched her life this past year.

In the time since she sent it, I’ve reread it three or four times. I don’t know if she intended this, but she happened to remind me of something important I have a bad habit losing sight of.

She touched me, more than she can really know.

So today, in honor of Amanda’s sweet message and in honor of what’s really important in the stressful holiday season, I am sharing a free printable you can give as a present to anyone on your Christmas shopping list. But this gift is something you can’t get in a store, and yet it will be the most treasured of all.

Use this sheet to record your favorite memories of your loved one.

• Maybe you’ll write about that road trip you took together right after college.
• Maybe you’ll recall the time you made the Thanksgiving turkey and botched it beyond belief.
• Or you could record forever and ever the memory of you pouting and whining about working alongside the love of your life to rake the yard on a perfectly beautiful day when there was nothing else that had to be done at the moment.

Writing down these moments is a gift that says, You know what, holiday stress? You can suck it. This is what life is about.

Here’s the first page…

And the last page…

With a couple pages in between for recording more memories.

Get Your Free Memory Pages

1. Get the pages. You’ll get the printable, plus join my weekly newsletter! Just click here to get it and subscribe.
2. Print. Any pretty paper will do the trick, but card stock^† would be ideal. Or shoot, just use regular paper – your memories are the gift here, not the paper.
3. Fill out the pages. Just do the first and last page if you’re short on time, or go all out and fill in a memory for every prompt.
4. Put the pages in an envelope. Or if you want to really mess with your loved one’s head, wrap the pages up in a HUGE box with a ton of tissue paper. That’s good times, right there.

^† This site is reader-supported. When you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Your Turn

How do you keep the cray-cray at bay during the holidays? Share in a comment below!