Donald Davis, master storyteller, shares holiday tales in Lehi
Master storyteller Donald Davis entertains a captive audience on Monday, Dec. 7, 2015 in the Garden Room at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. JARED DAYLEY for the Daily Herald.
Master Storyteller, Donald Davis, speaks to fans Marina and Charles Spence before the event on Monday, Dec 7, 2015 in the Garden Room at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. JARED DAYLEY for the Daily Herald.
Master storyteller Donald Davis entertains a captive audience on Monday, Dec. 7, 2015 in the Garden Room at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. JARED DAYLEY for the Daily Herald.
Scott Lohner laughs while listening to Master Storyteller Donald Davis on Monday, Dec 7, 2015 in the Garden Room at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. JARED DAYLEY for the Daily Herald.
Master storyteller Donald Davis signs a CD for a fan after his performance on Monday, Dec 7, 2015 in the Garden Room at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. JARED DAYLEY for the Daily Herald.
Master storyteller Donald Davis entertains a captive audience on Monday, Dec. 7, 2015 in the Garden Room at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. JARED DAYLEY for the Daily Herald.
Donald Davis is a master at spinning an ordinary story into something extraordinarily funny and magical.
There were no tulips nodding their heads in the drizzly night Monday evening, but the Thanksgiving Point Gardens were still alive and bustling. Tucked cozy and snug in the Thanksgiving Point Garden Room, the holiday season was blooming, and laughter wafted through the room like the lightest scent of evergreen.
In a style reminiscent of the Richard Peck books, “A Long Way from Chicago” and “A Year Down Yonder,” with a twist of Ralphie from “Christmas Story,” Donald Davis, a nationally renowned headlining master storyteller, spun five holiday-themed yarns filled with the tales of from his own Christmas past. His accounts made audience members, from those in pigtails to those with shocks of white curls, giggle and even shed a few tears – but mostly because they were laughing so hard.
“Just the sound of his voice takes you to another place,” said Provo resident Nancy Olsen. She and her friend and fellow Provo resident, Laura Wadley, travel when they can to catch storytelling events featuring Davis.
“You know you’re going to hear wonderful things out of ordinary stories. Every time, I feel like I should tell my stories more like that,” Olsen said.
Davis’ first story of the evening went back to the year, 1908, when a bear came to his grandfather’s farm in North Carolina and stole a pig. Davis’ father and siblings were sure Santa would be scared off with all the pig squalling, shotgun shooting, and dogs barking, but he still came.
A few stories involved Davis’ younger brother Joe – known around Christmastime as the impatient one. Joe would sneakily unwrap his gifts before Christmas, play with them, and then “wrap” them back up, pretending he’d never seen them on Christmas day. With a bit of cleverness, and some judicious uses of rocks, wood switches, and a full vacuum cleaner bag, the family finally broke Joe of the habit.
Trickery also was the theme of another story where Davis’ own mother and her sister happily ended up with their own coveted wool coats, in just the right size, paid for by each other’s husbands.
All the stories revolved around belief in the hope and magic that the holiday season brings to both young and old. And Santa survived all of them – even though in one, he was peed on, and in another, he was going to head down a chimney plugged with an old-fashioned oil stove. The first Santa learned his lesson quickly, and the second was directed to the front door by very earnest hand-painted signs.
“The holidays are a great time for family stories,” Davis said in concluding his presentation. With a bit of tongue-in-cheek, he added, “Every story is loaded with trouble.”
He encouraged parents and grandparents, to not be so serious about the mishaps or disappointments, to just remember, “You’ve made another story. You’re family has lived through that.”
For Davis, this type of evening is a full-time job, one he’s been doing for 26 years. At the end of the evening, as he signed books and CDs, Davis was exhausted, but happy, saying his favorite part of his work is, “watching other people remembering stories of their own they wouldn’t have thought of without hearing mine.”
That’s why, though his wife and home are in North Carolina, most weeks of the year he is on the road, traveling the nation sharing his “ordinary” stories and remembrances. He’s well-known locally for his performances at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, and was invited to Lehi because of the partnership between organizers of the Festival and Thanksgiving Point, but is a draw for audiences everywhere. He’s performed at the Smithsonian, as a headliner for the National Storytelling Festival and the World’s Fair. He’s also appeared on PBS, NPR, CNN, and ABC, and recorded over 30 albums and written a dozen books.
“He’s a national treasure. We’re so lucky to have had him come here,” Wadley said.
As the evening closed, and the lights went out, Wadley and others drifted out into the wet night feeling a little bit lighter and still chuckling a bit to themselves.
