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.  Instead, decide to start your own tradition beginning with the current generation.  Begin to collect Italian charms. 

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. 

  Read on for three easy steps to follow on your way towards a new valuable family tradition:

1) Begin by purchasing a 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.  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) Buy charms over time that reflect meaningful events or stages in the lives of each family member. 

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 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?  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?  Choose an Italian charm that represents each of those interests, accomplishments and milestones.

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).

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.”

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