We need to tell more stories.

This morning Hobart Mums’ Network asked what we resolved to do this year. I thought about it briefly, and flippantly replied:

Write more, daydream more, take notes for everything, smile lots, laugh, embrace irreverence, be silly often, tell stories every day, love well, live well.

As flippant as I felt, looking back on my comment this is exactly what I plan to do this year.

Christmas Night, when everyone had gone home, Evelyn was asleep, and the light was disappearing from the horizon, Nathan lit the bonfire. We sat there, watching the paper and wood burn, and my brother and I began telling stories.

Amy and Isaac curled up on the grass next to us, blankets around their shoulders, while Nathan listened. We sat there, and I recounted moments from my childhood for them. My brother added things I’d forgotten – although how I’d forgotten sliding down the dry grassy hill on a body board, I don’t know.

My children laughed, and snuggled, and begged for more.

There is power in telling stories to my children, especially stories from my childhood. Snippets they take into themselves, building connections between us as they imagine me as a child, hiding from my parents in an old cupboard, or sliding down a hill on my stomach.

This year, I resolve to tell more stories. Write more, and write often. To laugh. To embrace irreverance, and to not take myself seriously.

We can learn a lot from how our children approach life, and this year, I plan to emulate them.

Of course, bits of adulthood continue to sneak in around the edges, with a credit card disaster fresh in my memory, and a discovery that no matter how stable it feels like we are, it only takes a minor disaster to set off my financial disaster alarm bells.

But it’s all okay. It’s a New Year, all fresh and shiny, with the bubble wrap still caught around the edges.

I plan to take advantage of every second.

Of course, I’m also quitting sugar for January as part of a sponsored campaign that I’ll talk about in detail a little later in the month, so “taking advantage” may also equal “curling up in a ball with tea and a book”. Clearly I am insane as the house is still full of chocolates from Xmas. Twitch. Twitch.

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You can read about my credit card disaster on Money Circle. It wasn’t the highlight of my Christmas period, that’s for sure.