Family Reunion - It's a Family Affair

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Recently, I had an opportunity to see many members of my family at our bi-annual Family Reunion. This year it was held in Durham, North Carolina and hosted by my brother and sister-in-law. As usual, it was a delightful time.

Today, I hope to share some of my memories of my family reunion and also to share some family reunion planning sites that may be of interest you.

It hasn’t been held in Maryland for some time now, as one of my sisters-in-laws so politely reminded me. That was my hint to take on the next family reunion. It just may be fun to host it in two years, but I don’t know if I’m really up for the task! I’m going to give myself a month to think about it.

I had a great time and seeing everyone made me realize just how much I missed them all. Although all the family hails from Maryland, most of the siblings relocated out of state after they all got out of the Air Force. Their children migrated from the states they were all born, but transferred to different places. So, my family is just all over the United States!


Entertainment for All Generations

The age range of the family was 5 to 96 years of age. Everyone had fun from the youngest to the oldest. We were all entertained. The little ones were happy with the wading pools and horseback riding. The men had horseshoe throwing and pool tournaments.

We also overtook a bowling alley! Don’t worry. We called ahead to alert them that we were coming. It was about 45 to 50 of us that went. We broke up into teams and then had a final run-off against the top two teams. No, I wasn’t on either one of the teams!


The teenagers seemed not to want to do anything but stay on their phones! But, at least they were happy. They came up now and then to eat and get introduced to another relative they never met before. They also liked our bowling activity and a few other activities that we held like Family Feud.

Music was their thing. All the family got involved when the teenagers started the impromptu dance lessons, and none of us ever laughed so hard! The kids cracked up at watching us old fogeys trying to move our arthritic bodies as effortlessly as they move theirs!


The ladies, for the most part were having their gabfests and checking on the little ones and making sure everyone had eaten. You can’t take the “mom” out of us! We enjoyed sharing the family photos from when we were young and talked about the days “when.”

When we were younger the siblings made up the youth choir at our church. My mother-in-law was our director, and my father-in-law was our pianist. It was all in the family! I remember we gave concerts at the church as fundraisers!

You guessed it! Before we knew what happened, the women were up singing a little, and then we began harmonizing, and the next thing we knew the men had joined in and our original group gave a concert! This impromptu songfest was so unrehearsed, but we sounded great!

As the evening grew on, we played hearts, spades, a little pinochle, and some trivia games. We laughed and enjoyed being with each other. There was always someone who remembered some funny antidote to share with us that would bring out roars of laughter.

Our Farewells

On the day of departure, we met at a particular restaurant for breakfast and afterward, we would all leave for our destinations home. During the meal, people were walking around trying to get those last individual pictures in so we would have those to look at later at home.

When everyone had finished eating, we all went outside for the group pictures with the photographer (he was in the family, of course). There were several different group pictures: the original siblings, sisters, brothers, siblings and spouses, siblings and children, children and grandchildren, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“Family” will forever be important in my life because that is what my parents always taught me. My Dad would always say, “If you can’t count on family, you can’t count on anybody.” My Mom would tell me, “In the end, all you ever really have is your family.”

They were both right. I am the matriarch of my family now, and through the years I have made it a point to do all that I could to keep my family in close relationship with each other.

It’s always sad as the weekend comes to a close. We give hugs and kisses and say our tearful goodbyes. I’m looking around at all of them thinking that I won’t see them again for another two years!

As I’m glancing from one group to the next; the tears welling up, I think that this is my dear family and oh, how I love them so.


Sharing

I took over the big family holiday dinners, and during the summer all the stay-cations are at my house because I had the in-ground pool! Even during the week parts of my family are always dropping in. We take little trips together; play board games and anything else we think of to come together on a regular basis.

Family Reunions are a must with large families or when family members are spread all over the globe. Time is short, and life events happen. Don’t wait to make those memories with your family. Share memories and preserve them through pictures that can be passed down through generations.

Don’t let the finances keep you from hosting a family reunion. Also, don’t let the work stop you. There are many ways to do a gathering without all the expense placed on you alone. If you plan well in advance of the date and set up committees including other family members to help you, all the work won’t be on one person.

In fact, after researching how to plan a family reunion I can see how unproblematic it can be done, including raising the money to do it. So, now I am thinking about hosting our next family reunion in 2020!


Do You Think About a Family Reunion?

If you may be considering planning a family reunion and don’t know where to start, I would like to share some of the websites I researched to gain a ton of helpful information on this very topic. I also want to share some tips to keep in mind.

Things to Remember:

  • Don’t try to do everything alone. You may think you are Superman or Superwoman, but what’s the sense in overworking and over stressing yourself when it’s not necessary. The family reunion planning should be an enjoyable activity.
  • Keep things simple. Don’t try to outdo the person who hosted last year’s reunion. A family reunion is about enjoying family, not who put on the best reunion show.
  • Things don’t have to be perfect. Everything you plan may not turn out correctly, but that’s okay. Don’t sweat it, move on to the next thing.
  • Have a Plan B. We look for a beautiful day, but what happens if it rains. Make sure that you have planned for the unexpected rain if you are out in the backyard and everyone can’t fit in your house!

It’s essential to have one CEO (Chief Event Organizer) to make sure all the volunteers’ efforts coordinate smoothly. This person should delegate the responsibilities of the planning.

Have a backup place for you to move your outside activities to in case of bad weather. Make sure you include this information in all flyers, newsletters, emails, and any other forms of notifications that you send out.

  • Don’t be too intense with the activities. Don’t try to cram every moment full of activities. Your family will also enjoy some downtime so they can enjoy conversations with each other to catch up on things.
  • Make sure you have a clean-up committee at the end of the day. Better yet, make sure at the outset, you let the family know not to leave their trash around, but be polite and put their trash in the appropriate receptacles.

These links will give a few tips that will be helpful as you are planning your family reunion.

Please check out these websites for more in-depth information to help you plan your reunion.

Family Reunion Resources:

http://grouptravel.org/family-reunion-planning-guide/

https://www.familytreemagazine.com/premium/10-steps-to-family-reunion-success/

http://www.family-reunion-success.com/family-reunion-blog.html

https://www.wikihow.com/Plan-and-Organize-a-Family-Reunion#

https://www.wikihow.com/Plan-and-Organize-a-Family-Reunion

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/travel/how-to-plan-a-fami...

The first link divides the article to just about everything you need to consider when planning how to plan a family reunion. You will also find a “Planning Family Reunion Checklist.” I found it very helpful.

I am providing these resources for you to weigh your options and think about whether you could host a family reunion for your family.


Conclusion

I honestly wrote this article as a way to express how good I felt after seeing so many of my family members that I haven’t seen in a while. It gave me an opportunity to convey how important my family is to me, as I’m sure yours is to you.

We didn’t have a “Madea’s Family Reunion,” but we sure had a lot of fun spreading the love around!


If you don’t have a family reunion, you should give it a try. If you have a tiny family, you can still get together and enjoy time together. Families today don’t share enough time together, and it’s time we can’t get back. Think about it!

I would enjoy hearing your thoughts about family reunions you might be able to share with us.

I appreciate that you stopped by to check out my blog. I hope you found it enjoyable.

I welcome and appreciate all “Likes.”


Cheers,

Verna

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Recent Comments

14

Loved your post. There is bound to be enough affiliate income in a niche market for a person as passionate about family reunions. I would certainly be following you.

Hi Roger,

Thanks for the comments. Yes, I'm thinking about it as my next niche site!

Love this. On my to do list to plan a family reunion. It is mostly a money issue for many of us to come together. I think if we project far enough it can happen. I've only been to one reunion and that was over 40 years ago. Thank you for sharing your experience and the many helpful tips.

Thank you for sharing. Planning ahead is the key! With our reunion we ask all the family members to pay dues that would help cover food costs and the family reunion t-shirts. It works out pretty good.

There are some tips online about how to have a family reunion on a budget also,

Hi Verna,

You carry the name of my favorite aunt on my father's side. You made this come alive and leave me wanting to ask you a question; 2020, can I come?

O. O well, guess I'll have to plan my own. Don't have as large a family as you but theyr'e still family.

Thanks for sharing.

Russell

Hello Russell,

You really gave me a chuckle!!

You're right, family is family no matter how large or small.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Let me know who your family reunion planning goes!

Verna

I will. I'll have to have a chat with my sister first. She loves that type of thing. :)

So, you know you will have some help! LOL!

Glad you had a good time.
Jerry

I surely did! It wasn't the food, the games. the chatting, or anything else we did. It was all about the love of family and being with them again! F.O.E. (family over everything).

Thanks for commenting.

What's your website going to be about? Seems like a nice blog post for a website

My website is for the purpose of helping new affiliate coming into the online business. Since I was writing a WA blog post I wanted to write about something that didn't have anything to do with affiliate marketing for a different pace. Who knows, maybe my next website will be about planning for family reunions!

Thanks for the comments.

You sure would do a great job of it!

Thanks Karin! I appreciate the comment.

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