Memories in a Gift Bag

Tonight was Malone's graduation. Five basketball players from my husband's team graduated tonight. It was a wonderful night. These five players have been a huge part of my family's life. Many of them were on the very first middle school team my husband coached when he started at Malone. These players mean a lot to us and because they do we wanted to give them something special.

It's hard to give a group of boys a gift for graduation that you think they will like. Of course you can give money but that's a lot of money when you have five players to give too. One year I think we gave them a card and my husband wrote a nice note in it. The other years are a blur. After we give them their gift we always wish we would have done something more, something more memorable. So this year I think we did just that. We gave them some memories in a gift bag.

We tape all the basketball games with our video camera that is an 8mm. You know the one's you buy the little tapes for. Well once the games are recorded my husband transfers that video onto a VHS tape to record stats and stuff. We have a countless number of VHS tapes in our possession. It is ridiculous. So I thought this year why not jump into the 21st century and transfer the tapes to DVD. I did just that. I borrowed my dad's dvd recorder (Thanks Pops!) and went to town. It took me several hours and I didn't have every game but I did manage to get 16 games on 5 dvd's. Totally worth it. I wrapped the package of dvd's with a bow and put them in their gift bag.

The next item in the gift bag was one of my personal favorites, a towel with "Malone Tigers" embroidered on the front. My mother (Thanks Momma!) so graciously embroidered the towels with her Janome machine. I rolled those puppies up and stuck them in the gift bag.

Finally, the last item in the gift bag was a personal note my husband had written to each player. The card wasn't your standard graduation card but a set of cards I had made with the team's picture on the front. They turned out really nice, a black and white picture on a black background with the inside left blank for multipurpose. These would be great for thank you's or graduation cards in our case.

Once all the items were in the blue gift bags of course I closed them off with an orange ribbon. I got lucky and found some metallic orange ribbon that looked cool with the blue bag. (The school colors are orange and blue.) Once these bags were given to each senior player I knew in my heart it was something they would never forget. I think I have started a new tradition. Besides wrapping and giving gifts are what makes me smile the most.