We love sharing small household traditions with you. There are so many inexpensive, simple ways to mark special dates and display meaningful items that make a home feel personal. For example, a while back we made vacation jars to save little mementos from our trips.
We also like sending a postcard to ourselves after trips to capture details we might otherwise forget; they look great tucked into a large glass vase.
Another project was framing old keys to commemorate places we lived before moving into our current “forever home.” Those framed keys sit beside the postcards in the vase shown above.
I also picked up a vintage map, mounted it on cork, and framed it as a simple pinboard to mark the places we’ve traveled together. We’ve added plenty of pins since our big Texas road trip.
On big days—anniversaries and other milestones—we’ll grab some inexpensive photo-strip portraits to remember the moment (like the day we found out we were expecting).
But enough looking back—let’s fast-forward to the new year. John and I have a quirky New Year’s Eve tradition: a romantic sushi dinner. It started unintentionally after we realized that, for several years, we’d somehow ended up at a sushi restaurant every December 31st. After enjoying sushi on New Year’s Eve in 2005 and 2006, we continued the habit through 2007, 2008, and 2009.
Somewhere along the way John suggested we save a pair of unused chopsticks from each restaurant and label them with the date, the occasion, and the place. It’s a free, simple way to keep a visual record of where we were at year’s end. Displayed together atop a lacquered box, tucked into a cup on my desk, or arranged in an Ikea vase, the chopsticks become a tiny timeline of evenings spent celebrating the turn of the year.
We love glancing at them and remembering those evenings—whether we were traveling in Georgia, visiting family in Delaware, or at home in Richmond, VA. The chopsticks are a small ritual that helps preserve memories in a tangible, everyday way.
This year I stuck to cooked fish and vegetable rolls since the baby is on the way, but the meal was just as delicious and memorable. That’s our little sushi-inspired tradition. How about you—do you collect any keepsakes to remember special events? Matchbooks, bottle caps, seashells, wine corks, snow globes, menus, shot glasses, or even tattoos? We’d love to hear what momentoes you save.