Christmas and festive season stories

Stories for the season embody the spirit of Christmas, the festive season and New Year for the individual and collectively. What are your stories?

As a child living in Africa, we were mostly exposed to Christmas images from a glittery, snowy winter.  Even though, as in Australia, it was hot it didn’t detract one bit for me from the magic of Christmas.

We had our own stories to enrich those that came from our distant northern hemisphere neighbours.

The tattered hand-typed Christmas carols books we sang from every year; the same box of musty smelling dress-ups, the often somewhat inebriated, older uncles would don to play charades on Christmas night; the silver threepenny pieces in the Christmas pudding.

This year, I watched my grand-daughter sing Jingle Bells, replacing Santa’s sleigh and reindeer with a rusty ute and kelpie.  She will doubtless take this version with her into her stories of the season.

This is story at work.  Conjuring up history, shoring up beliefs, adding colour to perception to cement our picture of who we and ours are.

Stories don’t always work to capture our truth. It is our choice to reckon with that.

But when they do, they are powerful allies, bench-marking who we are, where we sit, what we care about, what we do for others, what we can and wont do, why we do or don’t, and for whom.

What stories do these seasonal words conjure up for you?

Whatever they are, I hope they bring you peace and goodwill.  And may the New Year shine a light on you and be all things that are good for you, yours, and our planet.

Keep collecting your stories, Sandy

PS. What’s on for the New Year in storytelling?

Call to Clarity one hour session

In the four decades I’ve been guiding entrepreneurs, business owners, professionals and academics, I’ve lost count of the people who just want to resolve an issue. They want clarity. Urgently

Sometimes there is a much bigger problem lying behind the immediate need. What they don’t need is a big coaching program, or presentation training.

In one short hour, what can I do to resolve these or similar issues?

After 43 years in the business, working across multiple communication streams, from marketing communication to online community building and web building; storytelling, speaking, and presentation training; and clarity coaching, I can work through issues pretty fast to get to the clear and logical next steps.

If you would like to invest in an hour of clarity, you can book an available time here. 

Story at Work

In 2020, I will introduce my new format one day training program, Story at Work.  

Story at Work will help you to communicate more compellingly to encourage your people to listen, remember, and act.

Together with pre-work, Story at Work is an intimate and interactive group workshop that’ll help you become a compelling writer and storyteller to enrich your communication and presentation skills.

REGISTER: Story at Work
Thursday 5 March 2020
8.30am – 4.30 pm
Only 12 places available.