The holiday gift. Kept.

What is under the tree

The gift is the asking.

A finished book cannot be under a tree. What is under the tree is the card, and the room, and somebody finally saying it out loud.

Christmas morning is the best asking moment on the calendar. The family is already there. You hand over one card, you ask for one story, and the person you are asking is sitting close enough to answer.

That is the part Kept could never attend on any other day of the year, and it is the part that decides whether a first answer ever gets written.

The words to say, printed on the back of the card

I realized I don't know how you and Dad actually met. Not the short version. I found something that asks the questions and writes it down properly. Would you do it with me?

I want to hear about the year you moved. I keep meaning to ask and then we talk about other things instead.

Leave legacy, memory and time out of it. Those three words make the ask about the ending rather than about the story, and they are the reason most people get told no.

Kept.

A life, kept.

For Marguerite.

From Anna.

The Reveal Kit. One sheet, folded twice, with the invitation inside and the words to say on the back.

And then, honestly, this is what happens.

Christmas morning

She opens the card and you ask her for one story.

Not for a project, and not for a whole life. One afternoon is easy to answer. A whole life is a request for a commitment and will be heard as one.

That same week

The first question arrives, and she answers the ones she wants to.

In writing or out loud, whenever she feels like it. There is nothing to finish and nothing to catch up on.

Through the winter

Her chapters are written up and she reads them back.

You watch the book get thicker. You do not read a word of it unless she hands it to you, which is the arrangement that makes her write freely in the first place.

In the spring

The hardcover is printed and it arrives.

Typeset, bound, and with her name on it.

So the book is not a Christmas present. The asking is. The waiting is part of what you are giving her, and it is the part she will spend the winter inside.

Still giftable on the twenty-third

There is nothing to ship, so there is nothing to miss.

The Reveal Kit prints at your house on one sheet of ordinary paper. Fold it twice and it is a card. Every other gift has a cutoff. This one has a printer.

One sheetUS Letter, printed on one side, folded twice into a card.

Blank insideThe left page prints empty, on purpose, for your handwriting.

No price on itNothing on the card says what it cost. That is not what she should read.

The words on the backWhat to say when you hand it over, printed where you will actually read it.

Two ways to give it this season

A book is $179 in November and $179 in March.

The price does not move for the holidays. What gets added to it does. Both of these are open on real dates and are simply not here when those dates are over.

Black Friday through Cyber Monday

The Founding Family Bundle

$179

The same things bought separately come to $287.

The book, and the hardcover that always comes with it.
A second hardcover included, so one copy can leave the house. Listed at $49.
The Recordings included, with no chapter count to clear first. Listed at $59.

Open Friday, November 27 to Monday, November 30

There is nothing to opt into. During those four days it is simply what a book includes.

November into Christmas

The Table Deal

$449

Three books bought one at a time come to $537.

One checkout, three invitations, three people writing three different books.
Built for the group text where siblings are trying to agree on one gift.
Charged in three parts, $149.67, $149.67 and $149.66, each one only when its own writer confirms.

Open Sunday, November 1 to Friday, December 25

If one of the three never starts, that part is never charged. You pay for the books that get written.

Outside these windows, a second hardcover is $49, added anytime from inside the book.