A sense of family history is important.  Some families have a great-grandmother’s engagement ring, a silver tea set a grandad’s brother found at an estate auction or a plastic chip and dip set in the shape of  platypus your mother received as a wedding gift.  Perhaps your family isn’t blessed with the cherished objects or those that might even become a running joke generation after generation You don’t have to dig an old broken vase out of your father’s attic to kick-start an heirloom tradition.  Rather, initiate your own family tradition today by collecting Italian Charms for your children. 

Italian Charms bracelets are the perfect family tradition and treasure: they are not as fragile as that old vase, not so valuable that they can’t be worn on a day to day basis, and not so old that they fall out of style.  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 begin?  Discover the three steps to start the process of creating an heirloom:

1) Begin by purchasing a starter bracelet.

You can start your tradition inexpensively with starter bracelets.  Starter bracelets are often simple, 14 link bracelets with links that are easy to link and unlink.  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. 

On the occasion of your children’s births, purchase charms with their birthstones, their names, or the year or place of their birth.  From then on, notice what the children enjoy, their favorite toys or, as they grow older, the sports or hobbies.  Choose an Italian charm that represents each of those interests, accomplishments and milestones.

3) Give the charm bracelets to your children. 

The giving step might be a little difficult for you.  It may feel as if you’re giving away part of yourself as you have taken such care over so many years to collect the pieces of memories.  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.”