Do you envy those families that pass down watches, rings and other precious heirlooms, wishing your family had something significant and meaningful to pass along generation after generation? You don't have to fight through the spider webs in your dad's cellar trying to find something worth eventually passing along to your children, grandchildren and so on through the future generations. Instead, decide to start your own tradition beginning with the current generation. Begin to collect Italian charms.
These charms, personally assembled by you into an Italian charm bracelet are much sturdier than fragile old china and can become a much more interesting conversation piece. Rather, the great thing about Italian Charms is that they create a dynamic tradition: literally every member of the family can add meaningful charms that represent their own identity.
So how do you get started? Read on for three easy steps to follow on your way towards a new valuable family tradition:
1) Get started with an Italian charm starter bracelet.
Starter bracelets are an affordable way to get a charm bracelet started. These become the foundation of the bracelets. They are made up of individual plain links that can be connected or separated at will. The importance of the starter bracelet is that it will allow you to add in personalized charms over time without running the risk of loosing loose charms; it also makes a bracelet-in-progress wearable long before you have collected all of your charms. This is a valuable way of going about creating an Italian Charm collection because you want to be patient and collect your charms over many years, not all at once.
2) Purchase personal charms over time as they correspond to events in your children’s lives.
When there is a new addition to your family, choose a charm with the appropriate birthstone. Perhaps add a charm that reflects, in some way, the community of the birth. From then on, notice what the children enjoy, their favorite toys or, as they grow older, the sports or hobbies. With this information, begin to collect Italian Charms that reflect their passions, hobbies, interests, and especially their achievements. Is your daughter an honor’s student? Is your son an expert pianist? Find Italian Charms that reflect these accomplishments and add them to their bracelets.
3) Give the charm bracelets to your children.
This may be the hardest step! After years of collecting and caring for the Italian Charms, you might grown somewhat attached to them. But for the tradition to continue and grow, you must pass the bracelets on. Select an occasion that is momentous, a transitional moment in the life of the bracelet's recipient. Find a time just before a wedding or after a graduation celebration when you can have some quality, unrushed time together. Explain to them the significance of each of the charms, and how and why you selected them as you did. Demonstrate how and where they might add on to their charm bracelets to keep the tradition alive, and how, one day, you hope that they will pass their charm bracelets on to their children (after having added charms that reflect the important events in their own children’s lives, of course).
Leave that old vase in your father’s attic. Start a dynamic new tradition for your children today. Follow these simple steps to get started; you will find that the tradition takes on a life of its own after several years. Perhaps you might even involve your children in the selection of new charms each year! Just think, one day someone will add a charm that says: “I Love My Grandparents.”
