What's in Your Hope Chest?

[Haven]

So, the banana thread had me digging out an old blank book that I carried around with me for YEARS during high school and part of college, actually. I filled it with quotes, poems, song lyrics, and other words that meant something to me at the time. I also stuffed it with pictures , concert stubs, fortunes from fortune cookies, AND all of the love letters that my high school boyfriends wrote to me. (And yes, they're still all in there.)

Anyway, I keep all of my little keepsakes in a hope chest in our guest bedroom, and pulling this book out took me on a nice little stroll down memory lane. My husband has a banker's box filled with relics from his childhood and young adult life, and it made me wonder what my PS friends are saving in their own hope chests. I have old photos, photo albums, my yearbooks, and all of the notes that my best friend and I passed to each other in school from junior high through high school.

So, what items from your childhood do you treasure?

My favorite item is my little quote book. Here are some pictures:

 

[dragonfly411]

I don't have one

 

[MonkeyPie]

I don't have much from high school. I do have a couple journals full of crap - I wanted to be cool even in my books so I made stuff up lol.

Psst...do you know your full name is on the first one there...?

 

[Haven]

I don't have much from high school. I do have a couple journals full of crap - I wanted to be cool even in my books so I made stuff up lol.

Psst...do you know your full name is on the first one there...?

Hahahahaha! That's hilarious, MP!

Thanks for the heads up on the name pic. It's my maiden name so I figure it can't be an issue.

 

[packrat]

Don't have one either. I had journals, but I had had a ceremony years ago where I smoked about a pack of cigarettes, bawled so much I had snot everywhere and almost threw up and I burned them. Keeping them kept everything too raw and it had to go if I was going to heal.

I do have, unless they got tossed in a wild fury of organizing, spiral bound notebooks w/song lyrics and a folder of poems I wrote. I've got pictures in photo albums from back in the day tho, and they're fun to go thru! Pics of friends kids, concert stubs, old penpals, pictures friends drew for me and that I drew, that kind of stuff. Senior pictures..those are a hoot to look at now!

 

[iheartscience]

My twin sister got my grandmother's hope chest and I got her china cabinet, but she had no room in her house for the hope chest so it's currently in my guest room with nothing in it! BUT I do have many, many boxes with high school and middle school stuff, including embarrassing journals and notes from my first love!

 

[iLander]

If ONLY all my old stuff would fit in a box.

Last time we moved it, it took 2 (count 'em- 2!) semi's and a small truck to move us.

Maybe I should start throwing some stuff away . . .

 

[somethingshiny]

When I see "hope chest" I think of glasses and dinnerware that your mom or grandma gives you for when you get married. Then I think about my mom telling me that Grandma sewed all of her bed linens and everything before she got married. Then I think of the handkerchief that my great grandma had in her hope chest that I carried at my wedding, my DH's baptism, and JT's baptism. Now I'm all teary.


As far as old memorabilia, I have every letter and note and picture that DH ever gave me. I also have old yearbooks, prom flowers, pics of random people and odds and ends that I have no idea why I kept. Gum wrapper anyone? Obviously a piece given to me by a crush or something.

 

[diamondringlover]

I have some of my older son's baseball cards and I do have some stuff I got from my Grandma as well, like some old dishes, a quilt she made and some other odds and ends.

 

[soocool]

I still have my Valentine's Day cards from elementary school (I am in my 50s) ! I have kept all my sketch books since high school. I loved to draw and did some painting. DD gets a kick looking at my drawings telling me that I am talented. I haven't sketched anything in over 30 years. I have recently made a scrapbook that is about me only. I have scanned all the newspaper articles when I played sports, my awards, my sketches, places I have visited, my thoughts etc. I did this so as I get older I can go back and reminisce about the days that I may sadly forget as I get older.


I have kept all of DD story notebooks since she was 6 years old and all the cards, birthday, Valentines, congratulation cards, etc and will give them to her someday when I know she won't throw them out.

 

[kama_s]

I have nothing saved from my childhood, probably because there wasn't much to be 'hopeful' about. I don't even have any pictures of me as a baby, rather, I don't have any pictures from my childhood at all. My mother has them all and I often plot ways to break into her house and steal some albums....if she still kept any.

This makes me very sad because I'll never have anything to show my kids or grandkids.

I do have a wedding hope chest though, and I also have pretty much every card or letter I've ever received ever since I was 7 years old. I love re-reading all the notes people wrote to me!

 

[reader]

I have a couple scrapbooks of my newspaper photos and articles/poetry from high school/first job.

 

[gemgirl]

I have my Mom's big old solid cedar chest that held her trousseau when she was marrying my Dad. It got very paint spattered over the years from all the rooms it was moved to, so I sponge painted it blue and now it holds all of my sheets because I don't have a linen closet. Any little thises and thats from childhood, whatever still exists, is in my attic in a box.