This Charlotte family’s annual tradition may be one you need to copy

Last year I was invited to participate in a ritual that has particular significance of marking time.

My friend, Toni Hanline, has told me about her family’s “Story Sharing” tradition for years. Each Christmas Day, like many families, Toni gets together with her parents and her sister’s families to open gifts and eat dinner. As the day turns to evening, however, their ritual becomes more unique. The family gathers in a circle and each individual reads aloud a story they’ve written. It can be a story about something that occurred during the past year, a memory, or a musing about an event – anything the writer desires. The only parameters are that it has to be a true story about something that actually happened. After each family member has had a turn reading their story, the written versions are collected and copied. The result is that each family has a binder full of true stories written by members of the family over the last 16 years.

The tradition began in 1998 when Toni read an article in a magazine about a family that did a similar tradition. She liked the idea so much that she sent her parents and her sister a letter – an actual letter in the mail, as this was before the days of email – inviting them to write stories that year to share on Christmas night. They’ve been doing it ever since.

I sat down with the Hanline, Davis, and McConnell families, who all hail from Charlotte, and asked them about what some of their favorite stories have been over the years. They said that some of the stories are light-hearted and funny. Some are serious or sad. Some are from years ago and some are recent events. All are important and meaningful to the family.

Blakeney, Toni’s oldest daughter who teaches at Cabarrus Charter Academy, said that a story her father, Mark, wrote one year about his love of baseball impacted her. “We knew he loved baseball, but to hear him talk about it felt like [the movie] The Sandlot. I wished I was a boy with a gang of friends playing ball with him.”

Toni added, “I’d watched him play for years but to hear him talk about what it felt like [to play] was new.”

Some stories are what the family described as “deep.” Mark, who is a firefighter with the Charlotte Fire Department, wrote about the loss he felt of firefighters he didn’t even know who gave their lives in 9/11. “He talked about how you have to be prepared to give your life everyday,” the family reminisced.

Sherri, Toni’s sister, said she was impacted by the story her husband shared one year about working at the Belmont Drive Inn when he was a teenager. “It was so interesting hearing the perspective of a 15-year old Wayne,” she said.

Pets passing away is a common theme that has been written about over the years. Blakeney shared, “If it’s been a year [since the death of the pet] one of us is going to write about it. It memorializes the pet.”

Even when Toni and Sherri’s children were little, they would still write stories. When Sherri’s daughter, Murphy, was two years old Sherri interviewed her and wrote her answers down for her. One piece of paper in the binder simply has the words “I got a pone” written on it in a child’s writing, along with a picture of a pony. Toni’s youngest daughter, Kate, wrote it for her story when she was younger. “It was true,” adds Kate, now an 18-year-old freshman at CPCC. “My aunt Sally drove up that Christmas with a pony in her trailer.”

Kate also crafted a story that was rather memorable to the family when she was seven. In an homage to her favorite country singer she wrote, “I love Kenny Chesney. I love his accent. I don’t care that he is bald.”

As the family members flip through the binders and reminisce about stories shared over the years, it’s easy to see that this tradition is more than just entertainment for a night.

Blakeney affirms this when she explains that reading the stories “reminds us how much we love each other, how special we are to each other.” And Georgia, Toni’s mother, describes that the tradition “binds us together.”

Research shows that family storytelling creates meaning and a sense of who a family is. Walter Fisher, a communication theorist, declared that humans are storytelling beings and that the stories we hear and share construct reality for each of us. He posited that “all meaningful communication is in the form of storytelling.” Dan McAdams of Northwestern University asserts that we each create our own “Narrative Identity” that evolves over time as we create a story about ourselves in order to define who we are, who we are becoming, and to make sense and meaning out of our lives. And an article in the New York Times discusses how sharing family stories gives children a strong sense of control over their lives and high self-esteem because “they know they belong to something bigger than themselves.”

As the Hanlines, Davis, and McConnells gather together each year to share their stories, they end up creating a family identity, strengthening ties, and defining who they are as a family unit. Listening to the way they describe this annual event demonstrates how this ritual impacts them spiritually, emotionally, and relationally.

“A lot of emotions come out,” admits Bob, Toni’s father. “Some years you can’t read it all because you’re overcome with emotion about your story. But it’s kind of like a sanctuary. You know your story is going somewhere safe.”

“It’s a great blessing,” shares Georgia. “Almost a spiritual thing.”

Sherri agrees. “It becomes a spiritual experience because it’s your innermost thoughts and feelings on paper,” she said.

“It’s the most important part of the holidays for me,” Toni says. “Though I suppose we could do it any time of year.”

I was honored to join the Hanlines last year as a part of their story sharing tradition. There were times of laughter and times of tears. It felt intimate and connecting. And for just a moment, I felt like part of this closely-knit family. I shared a story I’d written about my oldest son coming home for Christmas vacation from college. I started crying almost before I’d begun reading. Later I mailed a copy of the story to my son, hoping to share with him a story that might show him the role he plays in our family.

So maybe as this New Year commences, I’ll take more opportunities to write and share stories with my children. To help us mark time and construct who we are as a family unit of our own.