Friends who care; listen. Friends are the next best thing to family.
If you were to ask me what the best time of year is for storytelling, I would tell you any time of the year. However, the holiday season presents the ultimate best opportunity to gather together and exchange, collect, mine, create, and embellish stories. The practice of storytelling has existed in every culture from the time language began. Those who repeat the practice of passing stories from generation to generation create tradition. Those who refine tradition develop processes and styles to create the art of storytelling.
Our stories connect us. Our stories provide an opportunity for us to share our innermost secrets, our subconscious wondering the answers to how and why. Our stories are a depository of our family milestones, a reflection of our community similarities, and the documentation of our cultural wonders. Storytelling has the ability to bring people from all walks of life together for a common cause. Storytelling has the ability to generate laughter and joy and demonstrate passion and desire or envy and fear. Storytelling can create harmony, celebrate unity, and promote and encourage self-expression while at the same time cloaking and shielding our innermost secrets. Storytelling demonstrates commonalities. It creates common ground.
The holiday season provides the perfect scenario for storytelling generations of family members together under one roof over a brief period of time.
Family gatherings around the holidays are ideal for youngsters to sit at the feet of elders while the elders hold court. This is when they share stories of their lives, how they’ve become who they are, what challenges they have faced, and what obstacles they have overcome. The holidays are a time when every child can ask the elders all the questions they want answered. I mean, even “Why does Uncle always wear red shoes? Or “Where did our family live when you were born?” The holidays are built for storytelling. The secret is we must allow “spontaneity” to be the key that unlocks the moment when we turn off the electronics for an extended period of time, sing a favorite song, share a classic folk tale, or remember the ancestors who are no longer here. It’s a Time when someone can ask an elder what their dreams were during their younger days, how they achieved them, and whether they changed as they grew.
Storytelling brings generations together. Storytelling provides the platform for which we can see and understand one another’s particular interests and where we can find similarities in our differences. Storytelling brings our communities together. There are multiple facets to the Art of Storytelling. Once a group has decided its purpose, we can begin to support that purpose with our stories.