Join us on November the 2nd in our quest to get as many families as possible telling stories.

Families are full of stories that bind them together. On the night of November the 2nd turn off the TV, the music and the video games, bring out the family photographs and remember the people in the pictures, alive or dead, what they got up to, what their sayings or tricks were, and how you remember them best.

Stories of family and their friends will inevitably follow.

Why November the 2nd?

We've chosen November 2nd, because in Mexico on that day there is a festival of exuberant, life-affirming ancestral commemoration known as "The Mexican Day of the Dead". It involves the tending of family graves, the preparation of elaborate meals, the construction of shrines to departed family members - and the telling of their stories. It is quite the opposite of a morbid event - it keeps the families alive.

"It is said that a man dies twice:
the first time is when his physical body dies;
the second time is when he is no longer remembered."
Traditional Saying, West Africa

Our aim is to encourage intergenerational exchanges of stories, so that a sense of continuity is felt. Ideally there should be members of three generations present, but it's fine if there are just parents and their children.

A riddle:
Two mothers and two daughters stopped on a bridge
to look at their reflections in the river below.
Only three figures looked back from the water…
How could this be and why?
Select the text between the + signs for the answer:
+
There were three women -
a grandmother, a mother and her daughter.
+

There will be family members who are better remembered by older generations than by younger. Parents will be able to share stories about their own parents with their children, and gradually children will realise that they might one day be parents too... in the ever extending branches of the family tree.

"Old Cob and Young Cob and Young Cob's son;
Young Cob is Old Cob, when Old Cob's done."
Traditional Saying, England

The stories shared needn't only be the legacy of family stories: people are also remembered for the stories and jokes they used to tell, as well as their expressions, sayings and turns of phrase - not to mention their tricks and turns and puzzles - in other words, their contribution to a families 'intangible' inheritance.

Family customs

If this becomes an annual event it might establish itself as a regular celebration of family with its own meanings; you might invent your own customary ways of embellishing things. It might be that a family meal be cooked using a special family recipe, old and treasured heirlooms could be brought out and displayed in a shrine, a candle might be lit etc, etc,

"The family that eats together, meets together."
Californian Bumper Sticker