The Passing of the Torch

[rareboy]

For Christmas this year, I gave my neice and her husband our collection of Calvin and Hobbes books (we still have the collected set) because they are raising a Calvin right now.

For my neice, we also polished and boxed some brass pieces that were my grandparents' wedding gift and for our friends' daughter a pair of beautiful brass candlesticks we were given after her grandmother died.

I am happily choosing the pieces for next year to pass along to them with the stories behind them. I am so excited that we now get to start with a whole new generation of g-nephews and cousins' kids that we can give this warehouse of family bibelots to.

Have you ever received this kind of present or given one?

 

[fredroy]

No, but it sounds like a great thing to do.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Yes, I gave away many of my collectibles in my home to young high school seniors graduating, whom I knew through church primarily. I'd let them look about my interesting collection and choose something. I had all sorts of artifacts from here and there.

I also received kind gifts from my great aunt by marriage, modest tokens that had belonged to my great grandmother, but had all gone to her surviving son when she died seven years after my grandfather died. It meant a great deal to me.

 

[unloadonme]

I'm sitting here looking at a pair of Victorian oil paintings which previously belonged to my grandparents. I can remember them hanging in their home when I was a child and now they're in mine.

 

[Alistair]

I’d hate to be burdened with things that I didn’t want.

 

[rareboy]

There is that, but I think that the items we are passing on to them while we are still here will be things they can use and will enjoy....if not, they can sell them for the cash or give them to their kids.

 

[Vannie]

I've been giving away Depression Glass salt and pepper shaker sets to some family and friends who have favorite colors and had remarked on them.

 

[Maklaar13]

Such a lovely thing to do. I also started giving away some things that I have been collecting. Unfortunately I don't have any family but have giving things to people I know.

 

[Kahaih]

I’d hate to be burdened with things that I didn’t want.

I believe the trick is to pass these things on to the first person who pretends to like them. That's what the previous owners did.

I fucked up. By the time I realized this, others had figured it out and were already skilled at avoiding the topic.

 

[rareboy]

I keep hoping against hope that we will have a magpie homo in the next generation(s) who will have the same kind of immediate connection that I had for beautiful things as a child.

They would get the majority of family stuff...some of it about 350 years young.

 

[Peloso]

eba

I’d hate to be burdened with things that I didn’t want.

ebay

 

[LilBit]

I have my abuela's crockpot, and I absolutely love it. I also have a few sets of lovely hardbound books that another grandmother gave me when she moved from her house into a small apartment.

The other day my sister and I were having a conversation with my parents about which things we'd like from them. I want my dad's 12-string guitar, and my sister wants an old prism that used to hang in my grandmother's kitchen. Nobody wants the wedding china, as far as I can tell.