To read the full article by Katherine Kokal originally published in Palm Beach Post, click here.

To buy tickets, click here.

An 8-year-old in the 1970s who remembers getting Pong, his very first video game. A girl in Brooklyn whose favorite Christmas memory comes from the year she worked as a handyman with her dad. A Thanksgiving hostess whose home plumbing takes center stage at the big event. 

Want to hear more?

Then come to The Palm Beach Post Storytellers Project Show Nov. 16. It starts at 7 p.m. at the Lake Park Black Box theater. Get tickets by clicking this link.

The theme of the show is “Holidays” and the audience will hear seven people tell short, first-person stories about their most cherished holiday gifts, their most catastrophic holiday meals, and why those memories loom so large.

The show is the third to be staged this year by the Storytellers Project, a national USA TODAY network program based on a simple truth: There are experiences we all share and we grow closer — as people and as a community — when we share them. In short, we find common ground.

To that end, the project seeks stories from across Palm Beach County on themes common to everyone. Volunteer tellers are paired with Palm Beach Post “coaches” to help prepare their story for stage, and then share their stories in their own words at live shows that are open to the public.

Our most recent show in September drew more than 200 people to hear tales about “Food & Family.” 

Even though the past two years have changed our sense of connection and normalcy, The Post hopes you’ll join us for an evening of laughs, life experiences and good, old-fashioned community as we kick off the holiday season.

When the kitchen went cold: Losing a parent meant rebuilding a life

Holidays were always brightly decorated and loudly celebrated in Jacquie Stephens’ family in Auburn, New York, and her mother was the center of all the magic. 

That was until her mother was diagnosed with melanoma. The kitchen grew cold, and holidays didn’t feel the same after her mother died six weeks before Jacquie’s eighth Christmas. 

She’ll tell the story of losing her parents early in life and why celebrating holidays with joy now feels like slowly rebuilding her life’s foundation.

We hope to see you November 16th for a night of story telling and community building.

Partner, Eddie Stephens, told his story, “Officer Stephens” back in February 2022: