Wednesday, December 1, 2010

No thank you, I don't want to see your scrapbook.


So, I don't scrapbook. I have no desire to scrapbook*. I think it's a lot of time and even more money spent on something that will rarely get looked at and could be destroyed by something as simple as a spilled glass of juice.

And I'm just going to be honest here--no one but you gives a crap about 90% of the things you scrapbook. Sorry. Showing someone your scrapbooks is the modern day equivalent of forcing people to sit through your vacation slide show.

Also? When you scrapbook everything, it makes the important things seem, well...less important. Like highlighting every word in a book.

I can't remember every birthday or every Halloween or even every Christmas of my life. But I do remember the important ones.

I remember the ones worth remembering.

As I was decorating my Christmas tree this year, I realized that my ornaments are kind of like my version of a scrapbook (which is much cooler than your actual scrapbook).

I knew exactly where every ornament came from. Every single ornament on my tree has a memory attached. They've come from places we've vacationed, places we've lived. I have a "Baby's First Christmas" for all of my kids. I have my own Baby's First Christmas ornament. I have exquisite and expensive Venetian glass ornaments, and I have pipe cleaners with eyes glued to them. I have ornaments given to me by friends over the years, going back to seventh grade.

So I guess my point is, memories are wonderful, but you don't need to spend hours and enormous sums of money on supplies to create elaborate books to remember. And not every single event in life is special. Sometimes Halloween is just Halloween and it doesn't really need to be documented**. Your children will not be scarred if you don't.

I know I'm glad that I got a small box of meaningful Christmas ornaments from my mother and not a pile of scrapbooks. I think if my mother had made scrapbooks for me like many of you out there make for your kids, I would have been all, "Dammit mom. With the money you spent on these supplies we could have taken a Caribbean cruise. Twice."

O.K., so maybe I don't have a point. Maybe I just wanted to rag on scrapbookers. Either way, I feel better now. And I've probably alienated at least half of my readership.

You should go make a scrapbook layout about how I offended you.


*The exception is digital scrapbooking. That's pretty cool, and more financially responsible, and if you back it up, won't be destroyed by a wayward glass of OJ.

**I'm not talking about taking pictures. It's always nice to go back and look at long forgotten pictures. But they don't need to be in a scrapbook. Ever.

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