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A Family Reunion!
Now that you’ve gotten to know your whole family better, why not celebrate by helping them all get to know one another better, too? The best way to do this is with a family reunion. When’s the last time you got together with your family? Thanksgiving? New Year’s Eve? When was the last time you saw all your family—aunts, cousins, nephews, and second and third—and even fourth—cousins, too? A year ago at your Aunt Ray’s wedding? Two years ago? Some families have yearly family gatherings where hundreds of members come together for picnics or parties.
Whether you make it a yearly event or a once-in-a lifetime celebration, having a reunion is a great way for family members to keep in touch. And what’s more fun than a party? Although there’s a lot you can do on your own, you’re going to need the help of your parents for this.
First, what kind of party should you have? Give it some thought. A big picnic in the park? A barbecue in the backyard? Or will you need to rent a hall someplace? What is decided, assuming your parents sign on to the idea, will depend on the size of your family, the cost, when the reunion is scheduled, and what kind of things your family enjoys. Are you all beach-lovers? Or do you enjoy dressing up for formal occasions? Do the relatives like jazz or classical music, or would they prefer quiet? Does your family quickly line up for hotdogs and burgers from a grill or prefer to sit down to a meal? Should you hire a DJ or live band, or can family members provide their own musical entertainment? These are all things to take into consideration.
TIME TO SEND OUT INVITATIONS
You’ve gotten a go for the party! Good! Now, start by making up a list of those to be invited. Run it by your parents, because you don’t want to forget anyone. Some family members may live across the country or even halfway around the world. Some may have other things scheduled, so can’t come. Still, they should be invited—and you might be pleasantly surprised to see them turn up or prepare something on their own to join in the family fun!
FAMILY REUNION INVITATION
With many people to invite, it’s a good idea to design and print your own invitations. It’s easy to do this on a computer, and you can even send out the invitations as e-vites and save on the postage! Check out www.evite.com, or paperlesspost.com.
If not, it is perfectly fine to design a simple single-sheet invitation and photocopy it in black and white or color.
WHAT YOU NEED
WHAT TO DO
1. First, decide what you want your invitation to look like. The cover could say something as simple as YOU’RE INVITED!
2. If you have any scans of family photos, you could include one or more on a single sheet. Alternatively, you can use drawings or glued-on art if you’re doing the invitations by hand.
3. Next, you want to give the event a name (The First Annual Hodgson Family Reunion!), tell them where it will be (The Riverdale Country Club, 444 Madison Lane, Boston, Mass.), and when it will be (1 pm to 4 pm, Saturday, June 4, 2018).
4. Add a line suggesting what family members might bring, such as: Bring yourselves, your favorite stories, a family potluck with recipe. Bring special photographs and significant objects and other memorabilia to share.
5. Print the letters RSVP and your phone number. RSVP stands for the French “Repondez s’il vous plait,” meaning that it asks people to call and let you know if they will be coming or not.
Once the invitation is finished, you’re ready to have as many invitations printed as you need. Then all you have to do is prepare the envelopes and get them in the mail.
A REAL FAMILY MEAL
Remember when you were collecting all those recipes for your recipe box and cookbook? Now is the time to ask family members who will be coming to prepare a family heirloom recipe for the potluck and bring it to share. Check with them to see what they will be able to bring. You want to have a good selection of food, especially if certain family members have food allergies or need special diets. Make a list to see if you need any other main dishes, sides, salads, or desserts. If you do, check your family recipe box for something you would like to contribute. If you’re not an experienced cook, trying something new can be challenging. Don’t be afraid to ask your parents for help. After all, they’re family, too!
DECK THE HALLS!
To get things started, have a table set up where people can put the significant objects they brought with them: Great-Aunt Ethel’s first pair of roller skates, which came with a skate key! The cloth doll Great-Grandmother handed down to Aunt Takako. Your own first pair of baby shoes! As people arrive, they can put their interesting treasures on the table.
AND HERE’S . . . THE FAMILY!
Bring out the results of your family research and get ready for smiles. Remember, if you have all your information on your computer, you can simply print it all out and make copies for everyone. You could also share things as a slideshow or PowerPoint!
Here are some things to share:
Your genealogy timeline—if you can’t move it out of your room for the great day, you’ll just have to clean your room and invite everyone in.
Your own family tree and genealogy loose-leaf binder; it’s a good time for relatives to check names, dates, and facts. You’d be surprised how many misspellings are discovered—and can be corrected—when people examine documents and check them. If you made the family tree on a computer, you can print it out and bring it along. Keep a small notebook and pencil handy to record any details that need to be changed or followed up on.
Your traditional and “sampler” music, and some music on your phone from the different decades (your parents probably have some put aside); anybody want to sing along?
Your oral history recordings, along with written copies of favorite family stories; maybe they’ll inspire a few other family members to tell stories of their own.
Your family recipe box with favorite recipes; did anyone bring new old favorites?
Your family scrapbook; by now you should have many pages in it, filled with photos, recipes, and facts, facts, facts. You may want to print the scrapbook from your computer, too! Or burn it onto CDs and give them out as keepsakes.
FAMILY PHOTO SPOT
You’ll want to have a place where your reunion guests can enjoy looking over some family photos—and maybe add a few of their own. Maybe you can move your genealogy timeline from your room to the living room and leave space underneath it for another line to hold photos brought by family members. If that doesn’t work, put up a single line, or some shorter ones, to hang guests’ photos. Attach a few pictures to start, and also to show what the lines are for, then leave a basket nearby with clips for your guests to use.
If there’s no room for lines of photographs, set up a few cork bulletin boards. Keep pushpins handy for people to tack up any photos they brought. (If you place a pushpin at the top edge of a photo and another at the bottom edge, you can hold a photo in place without having to puncture the photograph itself.) Have stick-on labels, pens, and markers available, and encourage your guests to label their photos and identify the people in them and the locations.
LET THE FESTIVITIES BEGIN!
People coming to the reunion will bring their photos or tell stories about the people and places that mean something special to them, like the covered bridge where Grandpa proposed to Grandma! Big sister might bring her favorite Barbie, the one she got when she was six. Compare and contrast! How much have things changed? How have they stayed the same? Bring your treasures and memorabilia, too. It’s show-and-tell time for everyone!
For “who’s who” fun, post a variety of pictures on a bulletin board and, underneath, reveal who it is a picture of and when the photo was taken. Keep pictures of close family members together, so people can see who looks like whom. Be sure to have a group of “you must have been a beautiful baby” shots, with photos nearby of the same people as adults. See if everyone can match the baby pictures with the grown-ups.
WE’VE GOT GAMES!
Make sure you have plenty of things to do to keep the party rolling. One activity is to get everyone together for a “when I was a girl/when I was a boy” game. It’s more fun when relatives of all ages (great-grandma to just-turned-teen) play. For this game, you need to prepare in advance a dozen or more slips of paper with a question written on each and place them in a bowl. Each person is asked to select a paper from the bowl, think back to when they were between eight and twelve years old, and answer the question. Other people playing the game can chime in with their answers and comments—but they still have to select a paper when it’s their turn!
Here are some questions and requests to start you off. Add more of your own if you wish, but it’s best to keep things general. You don’t want to embarrass anyone.
Who was really, really famous then and why?
What was your favorite candy?
What did you really love to wear?
Sing the first two lines of your favorite song.
Where did you like to go on summer vacations?
What games did you like to play?
What kind of pet did you have and why?
What gift did you receive that was special?
What movie did you go to see several times?
Recite something that you learned in school.
Who was president, and what was happening in the world?
What TV or radio show did you always listen to?
What was your favorite meal?
When you went out, what was it you did?
What happened to you that seems funny to you now, but maybe wasn’t then?
REMEMBER FAMILY PHOTOS!
Don’t forget to take video the event and have others take video of it, too. It’s easy to use your phone to do this!
Let each guest say a few words for the camera or phone: Who they are. Where they’re from. What family means to them. If you have your notebook handy, you might want to jot down a word or two to remind you to follow up on something. But don’t try to write everything down, you won’t have time. And you want to enjoy the family reunion, too!
Don’t forget to take several group photos of the whole entire clan! That’s super important! If you have a big family, gather everyone outside, provided the weather is reasonable, and get everyone in place—some people may need to sit or kneel in front. (Ask if everyone can see the camera.) Maybe you can have a photographer come by, or a neighbor who is handy with a camera can take few shots—and a few more “just in case”—so nobody in the family will be left out of these very special photos. As long as you have a camera handy, consider some sibling or cousin photos of the older generations, with people arranged by birth order.