Don’t Let the Memories of 2020 fade...

When you look back on the 2020 holiday season, how will you remember it? Is this the year you had to create new traditions at home instead of traveling to be with extended family? Maybe it’s the year you finally took on online shopping for gifts.

This season is a cap on a year of challenge and change. It’s almost like anticipation for something better is the official motto of New Years Eve 2020. As we find ways to make the most wonderful time of year magical in its own 2020 way, many of us will look ahead in hope that we’ll soon return to normalcy. We’ve all experienced this year in our own ways, but there’s been a collective sigh of despair for moments and loved ones missed.

This is the year our kids tackled digital learning and our doctors and nurses worked overtime seemingly nonstop. It’s the year we wore masks to gather with our friends and neighbors or skipped traditional gatherings altogether. For some of us, it’ll be the first year a familiar face won’t be at the table.

One thing is certain, the challenges won’t end when the clock strikes midnight on New Years Eve, but there is hope and promise that we’ll one day resume those big holiday celebrations and the baby showers and birthday parties we missed along the way. Before long, we’ll likely walk into grocery stores and smile at strangers without masks on our faces. Like those who survived the 1918 pandemic, we’ll come out on the other side of this with stories to tell. We’ll each have our own ways we rose to the occasion during a hard time.

We are living in our history. What you experience today isn’t just your own story. It’s our collective history and now, possibly more than ever, our individual experiences as we’ve huddled safely in our homes or gathered in small groups with extra safety precautions are part of the collective tale of how we got through. Just as the stories from the 1918 flu helped many of us navigate a pandemic, ours will help future generations.

Regardless of what you’ve done, seen and heard this year, your story will help future generations understand the tenacity and fortitude of this particular moment in our lives.

If anything, 2020 has been a pause; a moment to breathe and reevaluate what’s important.

So while it may be good riddance to many of the things that made this year hard, let’s not trash the growth we’ve known and the memories made.

Let’s record our stories. Memories in Writing is here to help you share your unique experience with loved ones for years to come. Don’t Let the Memories of 2020 fade; start recording or writing your story today!