Not particularly frugal, but maybe a little academic.
Last year we got my partner’s grandma this journal
and requested that she fill it out for us. It’s a neat book asking for information about memories from childhood and adulthood, with prompts that help tell stories. My partner’s grandma had an interesting life, and we were hoping to capture some of that while she’s still around to tell us.
So she filled it out for us. She did gloss over some of the darker parts of her past… reading between the lines you can see that she was estranged from her parents very young, and got married to an older man as a teenager, but the why or how isn’t there. Only the happier stories. Apparently she eloped in a tiny private plane to a state with a younger age for marriage!
She gave us back her copy this summer. We took it to the local print shop and are having 8 copies made, one for each grandkid. Hardcover was going to cost something like $140/piece (seems overpriced compared to BigCity; there was a lot more competition in BigCity), but 8 copies in soft cover in black and white will only cost us $230 for the lot. The average cost over two years makes up for only spending $13 or so last year!
We will ship the 8 copies to her in time for Christmas, and hopefully she’ll give them out as presents.
And that’s our present to my partner’s grandma this year. I hope she likes it. Next year we’re out of ideas again.
Do you ever give gifts that require effort from the recipient? What’s on your list for folks this year?
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
October 26, 2011 at 6:59 am
Wow. That’s the best gift ever. You guys rock. Definitely worth copying.
October 26, 2011 at 7:01 am
We can’t take credit for it! Someone suggested it on a forum the other year when partner was stymied.
October 26, 2011 at 7:27 am
That’s a great gift idea!! We only have one living grandmother left (my maternal grandmother), so it would be wonderful to do something like this.
I am making a digital scrapbook (using Blurb) of Evan’s first year, including some of my blog entries about him (mostly the monthly milestone ones, but some others as well). I will give a copy to both sets of parents and keep one for ourselves as well.
October 26, 2011 at 7:29 am
Very neat! Some years we’ll do calendars with pictures for grandparents. I love the way you can do so many things with digital pictures these days.
October 29, 2011 at 8:40 am
I recently saw a photographer’s picture request form, and one of the options was “pillowcase”. I thought that was odd, but then I remembered those Japanese bodypillows and shrugged.
October 29, 2011 at 8:42 am
creeeeepy
October 26, 2011 at 8:39 am
Sounds like this was worth every penny. What a treasure this record will be for your descendants!
October 26, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Making a family tree that is preserved/backed-up digitally for future generations. My mother’s side (her great-grandmother) had a professional make a family record, but it was destroyed in a fire.
October 26, 2011 at 4:42 pm
That’s so sad. But yay digital.
October 26, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Wonderful! You are lucky to have a nice family. My birth family is filled with delusional narcissistic asseholes, although PhysioWife’s is magnificent.
October 26, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Well, this is partner’s family… so like PhysioWife’s.
October 26, 2011 at 1:11 pm
What a great idea! I’ve ordered one for my Mom for her two grandkids!
October 26, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Neat!
October 27, 2011 at 3:25 am
this is a fantastic idea !!! I’m a digital scrapbooker so all for the memory keeping process in as many ways as possible xx
December 19, 2011 at 1:22 am
[…] backstage passes to enjoy with DC. My father got a bottle of fancy rum. Grandmother-in-law #2 we already talked about (MIL says she got her copy last week.) The other half of the blog is getting an assortment of […]
December 29, 2017 at 1:45 am
[…] thing that #1 is glad that we did this journal before DH’s grandma’s Alzheimer’s became too severe. His aunt did something […]