A Charming Tradition for Your Family in Three Simple Steps

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.  And, they can continue to add meaning as literally every member of the family can add meaningful charms that represent their own identity. 

  Discover the three easy steps to begin the process of inventing an heirloom:

1) Get started with an Italian charm starter bracelet.

You can start your tradition inexpensively with starter bracelets.  These become the foundation of the bracelets.  They are made up of individual plain links that can be connected or separated at will.  Since the starter bracelets are made of a series of plain, individual charms, each carefully selected charm that you add will become a point of contrast and interest in the changing, overall design.  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. 

On the occasion of your children’s births, purchase charms with their birthstones, their names, or the year or place of their birth.  From that day forward, pay attention:  what do your children enjoy?  What are their hobbies and pastimes?  What subjects interest them in school?  To which activities do they dedicate their free time outside of school?  Find Italian Charms that reflect these accomplishments and add them to their bracelets.

3) Give the bracelets to your children or other family members. 

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).

Don't search the attic or cellar for something that you hope might have some meaning to future generations.  Instead create something that will inherently serve that purpose of providing a continuing family tradition.