What is the best way to preserve my Christmas memories?

Christmas is a wonderful time of the year for so many of us. Christmas traditions and celebrations form such a special part of our family memories.

But how can you preserve those memories, collect all the photos which friends and family have taken and share them?

If you’re unsure how to preserve your festive memories and how to share and enjoy them with friends and family, try creating an archive on YourArchive.

Let us explain how…

1.      Register for YourArchive.

Register to YourArchive. It’s completely free to join, and our free subscription includes 1Gb of secure cloud storage (that’s 500-600 photos!) to get you started.

2.      Bring together all your Christmas photos, videos, and documents from the previous years

These could already be stored in folders on your computer, on your phone, or in photo albums around the house. Source as much as you can and get everything in one place ready to upload to YourArchive.

3.      Login to YourArchive and create an archive

Create a new archive on YourArchive, this could be named ‘Christmas memories’ or ‘The Smith Family Archive’ for example. For information to on how to create an archive please see this video.

4.      Upload your photos, videos and documents to the newly created archive

This may involve digitising any physical photos by scanning them (apps are available to do this from your phone or tablet if you don’t have a scanner), then upload the photos, videos, and documents that are stored on your computer to your newly created archive on YourArchive.

5.      Invite family members to the archive to upload their own Christmas memories

YourArchive allows you to invite an unlimited number of people to contribute to your archive. Each invited member can upload their own photos, videos, or documents. Your cousin based in Canada, for example, might be in possession of the physical photos of your Great Aunt’s childhood Christmases – by inviting your family members it means that each member can upload the images that they have straight into the archive. No need to worry about sending them via post, via email (contending with size limits), or file transfer services.

6.      Tag your Christmas photos, videos, and documents

To ensure photos, videos and documents are easy to find, tag your content. This could include locations, people, or even feelings. All invited members can tag content within the archive, meaning that if you’re not sure who some people are – other members of your family may know and can ‘fill in the gaps’! For information on how to tag your content, please view our video.

7.      Create galleries from your archive content

Galleries are a view through your content based on any number and combination of; people, tags, file type, file size, dates, date ranges and more. View our ‘How to create a gallery’ video to find out more.

The possibilities are endless depending on how well the content is tagged within the archive! Possible galleries could include:

a.      All images or videos of your uncles, between 1990-2005, that also include a Christmas tree in the picture.

b.      All images of children opening presents between 1950-1975.

c.      All images that include your grandfather, with any family member, looking happy.

Gallery content can then be downloaded to perhaps make a family memory album, or to print pictures to print and display at home.

Do you have any other ideas? Please do share any galleries you create with us!

8.      Share your galleries with friends and family

Galleries can be enjoyed privately, shared with a defined set of users, or shared publicly via a unique URL. Galleries can also be customised with colours, logos and more! View our video about publishing galleries to find out more.

9.      Add new Christmas photos and videos each year

It may seem slightly overwhelming to get all your Christmas photos and memories together to upload to an archive…but once the process is started, it will be quick and easy to add to your collection each year, making it much easier to look back over multiple years in future.

10.   Continue to create galleries, and relive Christmas memories

Galleries can regularly be created to relive your Christmas memories time and time again!

We look forward to hearing how you get on (we can’t wait to see a few Christmas galleries!), and please contact support if you have any questions!