`Remember the time when we were having dinner at Aunt Martha’s and you kept leaning back on that antique chair and Mom kept telling you to stop and you didn’t and then the chair broke and you crashed to the floor.”
An incident once met with stunned silence is now a family favorite, greeted with hysterical laughter. Each time the story is retold, that old chair gets rarer and more valuable for the embellishment of it all.
This festive season, you may have the opportunity to be with “your peeps,” the ones with whom you share funerals, weddings and holidays. The holidays give us a chance to step out of our routine schedule and plan special times together with those people in our lives who share our history. It feels good, and it is reassuring to be with those who share our memories and have helped define who we are. This is the season for sharing stories, looking back on old times and reflecting on where we are now in our journey.
Storytelling is not just an art form for professionals. I recently reconnected with an old friend I had not seen in more than 20 years, and it just so happens she is a professional storyteller. Our reunion involved a four-hour cup of coffee and an education for me on how storytelling is more than an entertaining experience. Marni Gillard lives by a motto from Abba Poemen: “Teach your mouth to speak what is in your heart. Likewise, teach your heart to guard that which your tongue teaches.”
Everybody has a story; a story that is particularly significant and begs to be shared. Weave storytelling into your holiday spirit and encourage your children to participate. Marni teaches that through storytelling, children will learn a respect for oral history, the skill of using language to express imagination and creativity, the confidence to speak in front of an audience, and the ability to develop “characters” with dialogue, posturing and gestures. They will learn that stories have many layers and may sound a little different with each retelling. It is a chance to be heard and to show others who you are in the safety of a story of your own design. It is also a chance to command attention and to be validated by sharing a story that is a metaphor for what you feel in your heart.
Just imagine the thrill your children will experience if you host an intergenerational family storytelling event! Encourage everybody, children too, to rehearse a story ahead and come ready to tell it to the group. The children will love sharing their own stories as much as they will revel in hearing stories of their parents and grandparents when they were young and not so smart. Of course, they will especially enjoy the stories that reveal your misadventures like breaking Aunt Martha’s rare antique chair.
Can you envision the empathetic knowing smiles these stories will put on your children’s faces? What a perfect gift to give your children this holiday season, the gift that will keep on giving in so many ways: the gift of family history, of belonging, of being loved as a valued member, of being listened to and understood. This gift comes with a lifetime guarantee and doesn’t require gift wrap.
Felicia Bordick and her colleagues, Carol Smith and Joyce Thomas, are authors of “Kitchen Table Time: Recipes for School Success.” Please feel free to contact Felicia Bordick with comments, questions, or suggestions at [email protected].