I wanted to share something with you that has brought a lot of richness to my life.

Telling The Story of the Year

Each year, my family tells a long story on New Years Day. We gather up some good snacks, family photos and begin to look back at our experiences as we tell “The Story of the Year”. This story uses everyone as the narrator and often one person initiates it. Sometimes it gets started by someone’s reaction to a photo. Sometimes someone just recalls something they want to share. We tell this story collaboratively a month at a time until we’ve worked through the year. By the end, there are often some clear threads or themes of what we experienced and how we thought about it that we reflect on after the story. For us, this has great influence on the coming year and how we respond to what we heard.

This is a way to give everyone a voice and show great value to each family member’s experience. This video described it in a bit more detail.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash