You may recognize the title of this post as a line from “A Christmas Story” when the younger brother, Randy, gets all bundled up to go out into the snow and calls for his brother, Ralphie, to wait for him. The whole movie is full of memorable lines and side splitting humor. Our own lives are full of memorable lines as well, and children benefit from hearing these stories told over and over.

In the photo above, my younger brother is the one bundled beneath those layers in 1982. At the time my parents, brothers and I lived in Louisiana and we traveled to the Nebraska sandhills, to spend the holidays on my grandparents’ ranch where my mother grew up. We came prepared for cold weather with long pants, sweaters and jackets, but not prepared enough for the temperatures that froze the pipes that year. That was an adventure, full of lessons about how to find ‘clean’ snow, and how bathing every day was not absolutely necessary…

Sharing stories about family and friends with children can be interesting and exciting to them as they watch their parents or caregivers experience fond emotions or laugh while remembering. Just as important, is the sharing of stories with children about themselves. Whether it be about a time when they were too young to remember (my mom still laughs telling the story of how I urinated on the doctor after I was born when he held me upside down), or about something neat or funny they did just last week. Children benefit from those stories by listening and sharing parts themselves. These moments help build a child’s understanding of the world and connection to it.

I will be sharing more winter stories in the next few weeks, but would love to know some of yours.