The ReciScan Blog
3 Ways to Preserve Family Memories This Holiday Season
Bring family recipes, stories, and photos together in a thoughtful holiday keepsake. Here are three ways to get started.
If you’re looking for a gift for a parent or grandparent who says they don’t need anything, start with something your family already has: recipes, stories, and photos.
Putting those things together can make a thoughtful gift. It also gives everyone a reason to ask the questions that tend to get put off.
1. Make a cookbook of family favorites
Think about the dishes everyone asks for at family gatherings. Those recipes might be scattered across handwritten cards, text messages, and somebody’s memory.
ReciScan turns handwritten recipes and recipe photos into a consistent, easy-to-read format. You can organize them into a cookbook, add photos of the dishes, and order professionally printed copies.
Give each recipe a little context. Who usually made it? Was it saved for holidays? Did anyone ever follow the measurements?
A small book of family favorites is a good place to start. Our holiday cookbook guide can help you plan it.
2. Save the stories with Tell Mel
A recipe can lead to a much longer conversation about the person who made it.
Tell Mel helps capture those conversations. Mel is an AI biographer that interviews loved ones over the telephone, asking follow-up questions as they share their memories.
The interviews become written chapters on a private “Living Memoir” website, with the original audio kept alongside them. New conversations add to the collection.
For a relative who enjoys telling stories, it’s a gift built around something familiar: answering the phone and talking. They don’t need to write their memories down or download an app.
3. Add family photos and their stories
A family cookbook can hold more than recipes. ReciScan’s Custom Pages feature give you a place for a few pages of old family photos, memories, and the stories behind your traditions. Just use Canva or another image editing application and create a page to be uploaded as a Custom Page.
Ask someone who remembers each family photo to help fill in the details. Who’s in the picture? Where was it taken? What happened that day?
Those little details help turn a cookbook into a keepsake.
Pick whichever idea fits your family, and start with one recipe, one conversation, or one photo.