GIFTS: There’s something about a handknit scarf or a still-oven-warm loaf of homemade bread that feels more sincere than a shiny bauble from the mall.

If you’re struggling to think of how to show someone you’re thinking about them for the holidays, here’s one idea: put together a booklet of family recipes.

Family recipes are a deep-seated part of a clan’s traditions. Food is at the center of every holiday, and there’s nothing like the smell and taste of grandma’s homemade pie — with that one special ingredient that she doesn’t talk about — to remind you of home and family.

You know it’s Thanksgiving when that pumpkin pie reaches your lips.

Putting together this kind of family traditions is the kind of task that does not seem urgent — until it is. But once those recipes are lost, searching with all the technology in the modern world won’t help you find them.

If no one in your family has put together such a book, all of your relatives would be eternally grateful to receive one.

Better yet, in addition to writing the recipes down, carve out some time to make the dishes themselves with younger relatives. Reading old-fashioned handwritten recipes is truly an art — and one that we are quickly losing in the modern world.

Recipes weren’t the step-by-step guides we see in published books. None of our measuring cups read “a handful” or “a little bit,” and one phrase might include several steps — because it was something everyone knew how to do.

Also, it was assumed everyone had certain ingredients on hand, so sometimes items pop up in recipes that aren’t listed in the ingredients. If you didn’t scour through the whole recipe before going grocery shopping that might mean a second trip to the store.

Now, we read old recipes, only to find missing steps or old-fashioned ingredients — ingredients we either can’t get anymore or don’t even recognize.

Compiling recipes can be as fancy or simple as your budget or free time allows. They can be crafted into a bound books with color photographs, or simply shared as a computer file that can be emailed to your relatives.