Vacation Idea #16 - The Family Reunion

WISH i was on HOLIDAY

Every Monday from January to September

- Vacation Idea #16 -

The Family Reunion

Some tips for planning family reunions:

 Each year I look forward to my bit of planning ours.  My family does NOT have a long tradition of holding reunions so I have been in on the "ground floor" helping to set them up.

(a photo collage of our 2007 reunion -the smoke is from fireworks and a bbq)

We started by setting up a  private yahoo group that is only open to family and requires permission to join the group. Facebook has been a great way to connect with each other too, you can set up groups there too. We log the reunion in the events calendar along with any birthdays, weddings, showers along with other special family events. And create albums titled "reunion 2009" (or whatever the current year). Everyone in our group uploads photos from the reunion to the album. We also have an album named "old family photos" so that some of the older photos can be shared easily (although be aware, all of the photos in yahoo and on facebook are resized smaller than the photo you upload).  As the reunion draws near we start posting schedules to the group for food  and outings. We try to hold the reunions in a family members home as this is cheaper than renting anything. And there is a sense of familiarity you get when you have stayed in someone elses home. Of course not everyone's home is big enough to house tons of family so we have had to be creative with tents and rv's, but usually we manage somehow. (The kids love this! Little one man tents in a secluded area of the backyard)

Our schedule usually looks something like this:

Day 1- Arrive, visit, and get settled - Dinner.

Day 2 - Breakfast,  pack lunch, go on hike or other nature outing, bbq dinner on porch (pack breakfast and lunch for the men for the next day)

Day 3 - Men go fishing or other such outing, while the women scrapbook, or make beeswax candles or other fun talent that someone wants to share.  Campfire in backyard dinner.

Day 4- For us is the 4th of July so we just hang out around the house and visit, lighting sparklers with the little ones. Breakfast is cooked, lunch is light and always includes watermelon, dinner is bbq.

Day 5- packing up and going home. Breakfast is something simple like fruit and muffins, lunch is sandwiches and things that travel well for those leaving earlier.

(All of the meals are divided amongst different families to make sure that everyone gets a turn to cook, even the kids take a turn. And the host family makes the first dinner for everyone that is traveling to their house.)

We always bring bikes, family recipes, s-more makings, anything we want to teach others how to make.

We make a time for music as musicians run deep in our family. And we talk!

We talk about what has happened in the last year, our jobs, our ancestry, the news, vacations we have taken, with family there seems to be no end to the talking.

We pass around a paper for everyone to add their current addresses, phone numbers, and e-mails too.

Once it is all done and we are all home again, we return once again to our group and post some memories. Both to keep a record and to fill in the people who wanted to, but were unable to attend. The group then quiets down for another year, except for the occasional message sent to our e-mail in boxes to let us know that someone's birthday is coming up.

And I smile because I know that even though our family doesn't have a long tradition of reunions I have helped to set up a tradition that hopefully my children will remember fondly and carry on.

(the brick foundation on our families old homestead in Missouri)