This Reddit Thread Of Sentimental Gifts For Kids Will Make You Level Up Your Gift-Giving

Family heirlooms are a wonderful and important thing. Sometimes they’re gifts passed down through generations — an old tie clip, an engagement ring, a pocket watch, or a first edition of a classic book. Other times, families create their own new heirlooms and traditions — like one viral Reddit thread recently showed. And the lifelong gifts some parents created to pass down to their kids are so thoughtful and inspiring, you just might want to create a new tradition, too.

Reddit user u/PreciousP90 took to the popular Reddit community Life Pro Tips to ask for some advice: “What is something you can create or start for your kids when they are born that will one day make a really good present for them?”

The original poster shared that they have a 2-year-old and have already started to do a few things to give him in the future. “I have been writing him letters from time to time talking about all the fun stuff we do together,” they explained, sharing that they put these letters in an email address account they started for their kiddo.

Other things they’re doing include keeping ID photos to be able to show how they’ve grown over time, and they opened a Steam account so their child “can one day brag to his friends about having the oldest account of them all.”

u/Precious P90 then turned it over to the community to ask for their ideas, and there were some incredibly sweet suggestions.

“My mother started a photo album for me at birth,” u/jtd0000 shared. “Filled it with pictures and mementos from my childhood. The last picture she put in was my engagement picture. She gave it to me for a wedding gift.”

“My dad kept every progress report, award, certificate, scholarship letter, etc., in a binder and gave it to me when I graduated,” u/alexnotalexa10 added. “I had no idea he was collecting them until that day. It’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.”

For u/mcd137, they “bought a (hopefully) very nice bottle of wine made in their birth year. Hoping to give it to them for a big milestone, like buying their first house.”

Another Redditor shared a variation on the wine gift. u/SweetAmnesia672 shared: “My friend’s father-in-law is really into wine, so for each of his kids and grandkids, he bought a case of his favorite vintage from that year. Every special occasion (graduations, weddings, etc.), they open a bottle from the case and get to enjoy a present given at birth.” Since he was so into wine, the father-in-law would wait a few years after the kids were born to figure out which vintage was really the best, and he would store it well so it would age properly, too. Although the user notes not everyone is into “building traditions around alcohol,” this is a really sweet idea.

“When my sister’s kids started kindergarten, I interviewed them at the start of every school year,” u/Chriss-ay shared. “I asked the same set of questions, so it’s neat to watch their personalities develop.” How cute would that be to look back on, maybe in a binder or as a series of videos?

While some gifts were sentimental, others were more practical: “My mom opened up a credit card for me when I was Maybe 12,” u/kobeforaccuracy wrote. “That account increased the length of my credit history, and when I was ready to start building credit, my score was already approx 710.”

u/BrooklynBillyGoat contributed with another more practical gift for the future, but one that’s meaningful nonetheless. “An investment account. On bdays on holidays, whenever family or someone gives them money, invest it in market shares,” they suggested. “Gets them into learning investments and finance at a younger age. And if done right, they can use dividends to work less during college.”

u/superbionicbuck chose something really unique. “I took a picture of the daytime sky the day they were born,” they shared. “Then every birthday after that. When they were young, they thought it was weird, now they adore them.”

“My friend bought two of the ‘hottest’ toys at Xmas for each year for her son,” u/Individual_Serious shared. “She would give him one on Xmas and tucked away the 2nd one. On his 21st birthday, he received 21 of the best toys from each year of his life. Some are worth a lot of money, but all meant something to him!”

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure: “I started keeping anything I find in my son’s pants pockets, any pockets really,” u/PieEyedSmokeyChick wrote. Examples of things they kept from their son’s pockets include “rocks, sand, car toy, wrapper from his favourite candy at the time, marbles, coins.” They collect all the trinkets in a jar in the laundry room. “I pull out of his pockets go in it and when he moves out or maybe when he gets married, I'll gift it to him. Got this idea from someone else.”

For u/UnanalyzablePeptide, their dad gave them the gift of digital presence. “My dad reserved my name as a website domain name. That way it can’t be used for anything inappropriate when people are looking me up on Google,” they shared. “It’d be a bit hard to do that now, my dad was ahead of the curve. Now it redirects to my LinkedIn page, which I’m grateful for.”

And for u/sherlockwench, their future gift is the sound of music. “When my son first turned 4, he started to take a real interest in certain songs. So I created a Spotify playlist for him, and any songs he likes we add them to it,” they explained. “He regularly asks me to play his playlist, it's a potluck whether we will end up with Queen or a song about farts, but he loves it.”

You can read the full Reddit thread here.