– I was unwilling to pour out good beer.

I received their conversation and stories and momentary camaraderie as an exchange for the communal feast.

Jeanne VanBuren, from Winston Salem, N.C., is a contributor once again to the Personal Story Publishing Project. She is working on a collection of her life adventures that come from being a widowed mom of five sons and growing up in a huge family of 12 siblings. She has been documenting life's travels and changes over 25 years, annually enjoyed in Christmas newsletters, with promises of creating the award-winning novel or screenplay. She is fine tuning the art of storytelling through writing with guidance from projects such as these. Personal stories express to her that we are all uniquely the same, just living out experiences in different ways.