StoryWorth: Because Dads are Hard to Shop For
Bart and I are reaching that stage in life where our parents are pretty difficult to buy gifts for. Anyone else?
They pretty much have everything they could need and anything they do need, they can buy without waiting for the holidays.
Also, they’re all starting to get to the point where they’re thinking about wills and future (hopefully VERY future) dividing of assets, so they’re not exactly looking to be collecting more stuff.
In fact, within the last eight weeks, both my parents and Bart’s have sat down with us to talk about their updated wills, burial plot options, and trustee assignments. Nothing makes you not want to give your parents a meaningless little knick-knack less than hearing that you’ll be the one dealing with it in three or four decades.
So for someone like me, who already struggles with gift giving, this makes it even more difficult.
Storyworth: The perfect gift for someone who has everything
Then I heard about StoryWorth (they had a cool write-up in the New York Times), and I instantly knew this was something that would be meaningful both to my parents and to my children and me.
The basic concept behind StoryWorth is that you buy a package for your family member (a parent, grandparent, or anyone else), and every week for a year, they get a question a week from StoryWorth’s library of 600+ questions, or you can write your own questions.
Every week, they can email a response to the question and then their story is sent to you, where you can reply additional questions or comments.
A year later, the whole series of stories is printed in a gorgeous book that you can easily add photos to if you’d like or customize in various ways.
Super simple (and a perfect last-minute gift if you realize on Dec 24th that you still haven’t picked something out for your impossible-to-buy-for Dad and even Amazon Prime can’t save you now) and the kind of thing you’ll treasure forever.
Bart’s grandfather passed away a few years ago and during his last few months of life, Bart’s mom spent hours interviewing him about his life, recording his memories, and eventually putting together a book for each of her children with his life story.
It’s such a treasure for us to have and I love the idea of being able to create similar memories of our parents without waiting until the end of their lives.
Plus, because you get weekly stories, it’s a great way to stay connected on a regular basis throughout the year and learn more about your loved ones bit by bit. I love that we can read each short response with our kids each week and let them get to know a little more about their grandparents or our grandparents a bit at a time.
For the holidays, StoryWorth has discounted the price from their regular $109 to $99, so it’s an amazing deal, and next Christmas, you’ll get the completed hardbound book with a year’s worth of memories and stories.
(Does that sound like two years of Christmas gifts covered by one present to anyone else? Because it does to me!).
I also think this would be an amazing gift for new parents, when there’s so much you want to remember, but it’s completely overwhelming to be faced with an empty baby book. This seems much more manageable (let the record show that I have baby books for NONE of my children).
Anyway, if you’re feeling stumped about what to get your parents or grandparents, I think this is the best gift idea on the planet.
What a wonderful idea! For my aunt's 85th birthday, we fulfilled one of her longtime dreams by bringing her on a trip to Alaska. By her 90th birthday, travel was no longer feasible and we gave her a picture book of family memories. I'm not sure which gift delighted her more. By the way, your dad looks as though he has EVERYTHING he ever wanted in that picture where he is holding Ella!
I didn't even think about it for new parents- that's brilliant!
This is so cool! My MIL would love the audio option, but i can't find any more info on the website. Do you know how that works? You call in and tell your weekly story to a voicemail? Can you edit later?
Hi Stefanie, Hope from StoryWorth here! So, for the audio option, there are a couple things you can do. Every question email contains a link to record your story via phone: just click that, and our service will call the phone number in your profile. If your MIL doesn't use email at all, she can also call the StoryWorth number once a week to hear that week's question and record her story.
Once she's done recording her story, she can just hang up, and it will automatically be saved to her account as an audio file.
If you have other questions, please feel free to send us an email at hello [at] storyworth [dot] com!
Do you know what happens if someone misses a question one week? Can they catch up? At the end of the year, once the questions are complete and it's customized with photos, is it possible to order more than one copy of the book?
Hi Samantha – yes, people can definitely catch up! You can continue replying to old questions sent during the year even after your subscription expires, in fact.
You can buy extra copies of the book, and the pricing for that is as follows:
$39: Black and white interior, up to 480 pages
$79: Color books, up to 300 pages
$99: Color books above 300 pages, up to 480 pages
Feel free to send us more questions at hello@storyworth.com! – Hope T.
I just bought one for my mom and dad! What a great Christmas present. I had never heard of this, so thanks Janssen 🙂
I was told about your product.
I was wanting to do something like this for my granddaughter who never knew her grandfather , he passed away when she was a baby.
I know you say their are questions to answer, what if you don’t want to answer the questions and put in your memories.
This is not of me but of my dad and mom
Thank you.