Grandparent’s Day can happen every day – a time to read and to share! Oh, what fun to enjoy favorite books coupled with snacks and games, topped off by a grandparents undivided attention. Did you celebrate Grandparent’s Day this year? Well, every day can be grandparent’s day, no matter what age you are. If you are alive, you either have or have had your own grandparents. Are you keeping their stories alive for your siblings and offspring? How are you connecting your generation with the one previous to you, or coming behind you? Even if you don’t have children, or don’t plan to have them, you can leave a legacy behind that future generations can appreciate. You can keep history alive and garner some joy, all the while feeling good about your connection to the ages.
If you are grandparents already, have you read to your grandchildren lately? In this day of multi communication methods, you can find out what your grandchildren’s preferred method of communication is – telephone, e-mail, texting, Facebook, Skype, twitter, or – imagine this – snail mail! As you know your grandchildren reach certain ages and stages, you can share your own life-experiences of how you weathered those passages in your life. You can read your favorite stories to them, record and write your own life vignettes, write letters of insight that are to be opened at a later date, or pack a time capsule about your life. If you live close to your grandchildren, you are in a unique position to convey a love of reading to them as they visit with you. Why not go to your local Library for story time together? There are many ideas for fun activities and games on sites like this: http://www.grandparents.com/grandkids/activities-games-and-crafts/get-your-grandchild-psyched-to-read.
On the other hand, if you belong to the “sandwich generation” that has both children and grandparents that are still alive, you will surely want to arrange chances for shared time together. In our family, everyone has an assigned day of the week on which it’s their turn to call Grandma. Your children’s accomplishments, updates, and passages can be shared via e-mail , conference phone calls, Facebook, scrapbooks, texts, etc. At your get-togethers, you can make sure to highlight verbally what positive things your parents did for you as you were growing up. Work on a family tree together. Use internet sites like ancestry.com or others to trace the family’s roots – be family history detectives together. Your children can tape-record your parent’s voices on a recorder, or if at a distance, tape their phone messages so that you can keep a record of their voices. Most of all, have FUN together as you build a museum of memories!
Here’s a clever poem which Mary Ivelia, the Children’s Librarian at our Buena Park Library, composed to be sung to the tune of “Take me out to the ball game” – “Take me over to Gran’s house, Take me over there now; Gran will have cookies and Cracker Jacks, I don’t care if I never come back. Let me go, go, go see my Gran now, If you don’t, it’s a shame. For it’s one, two, three times the fun ‘Cause she’s a good old dame. Take me over to Pop’s house, Take me over there now; Pop will have cookies and Cracker Jacks, I don’t care if I never come back. Let me go, go, go see my Grandpa, We’ll have fun and play games. For it’s one, two, three times the snacks, We’ll be glad we came.”