Current Events > Do you like going to family reunions?

(+) Yeah! (+)

We'd have family get togethers around the holidays but no one ever called it a reunion

Yes and no, depends which side of the family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGb59CZdF60

I've only been to one, and besides my Grandparents, and my parents, I didn't know a single person there.

Had an unintentionally surreal one at the end of April.

My extended family see each other often enough that it's not really a "reunion" it's just a get-together. And I enjoy them a lot

I have done a few actual reunions with extremely extended family and they tend to be fun too but I wish they weren't always hosted in a different country

Kajagogo posted...

I've only been to one, and besides my Grandparents, and my parents, I didn't know a single person there.

Did you try to socialize with them?

Never been to any sort of family gathering.

Absolutely.

It gives a chance to catch up with our lives. My sisters organized a pumpkin contest for our Halloween gathering. Winner gets the grand prize of $2,500 (but it's never really about the money, but the laughs of our designs.)

Haven't been to dad's side family reunions since early 1990s (and he passed away January 2023, so even more unlikely I'll ever go to one, if they're even still holding them). Don't think my mom's side ever did them.

My moms side has had a few of them, but Ive never gone to them.

To me, my family is everyone who descended from my grandparents. Ive known them my whole life and am very close with them. Anyone outside of that scope are people Ive never met, and I really dont have any interest to meet them.

It isnt personal. It just doesnt intrigue me in the slightest. They are essentially strangers to me.

My grandmother use to organize them every few years before she passed. I think the last one may have been a little over 10 years ago but she passed maybe 6 years ago. I didnt mind them, did the usual meet and greet, ate than waited till dark when certain cousins would break out the liquor and weed and the real party starts.

We're pretty much all fat, so the food is usually pretty good.

Zergrush80 posted...

My grandmother use to organize them every few years before she passed. I think the last one may have been a little over 10 years ago but she passed maybe 6 years ago. I didnt mind them, did the usual meet and greet, ate than waited till dark when certain cousins would break out the liquor and weed and the real party starts.

All the cousins would hang out in my grandparents' basement that they had set up like an actual bar. Pop had some good shit down there and somehow knew when we watered it down after drinking.

No.
I hated my extended family.

There were only a couple big ones for my extended family on my dads side. The last one was when I was in my early 20s at Scotfest (our family is Scotch-Irish) in Estes Park, CO and was pretty awesome but the older folks who organized that stuff I think have largely given up the ghost.

Maybe if my generation planned one I would, but I only ever get dragged to them by my parents so it's their extended family and I've probably met them before but I don't remember any of them and they're all like 90 now

Never had one, and no I wouldn't enjoy it.

Depends on who else shows up.

Haven't been to a real family reunion in awhile but plenty of BBQs/gatherings.....always enjoyed them to hear stories I've never heard before or hear the ones that are repeated constantly, always laugh and have a good time

Been a while since there was any kind of huge extended family reunion in my family.

VeggetaX posted...

Did you try to socialize with them?

Somewhat. I was just a kid though, so...mostly just hung out with the other kid, cuz we were all told too.

Yes.

well on the one side of my family, i don't particularly hate anybody but they spark no joy in their presence.

on the other side of the family is a bunch of red-hat MAGAs that have actually physically fought with me over saying gay and trans people deserve to have jobs and opportunities like the rest of us.

on top of that, i really don't like hanging around other people for extended periods of time

so, no, i don't particularly like reunions. at least on the one side i can usually just go off on my own when it gets too much.

i rarely see my extended family, so it's nice to do so

We started these up again 2 years ago after the height of the pandemic. I used to hate them but now that I have kids I see value in it. My mom and dad are the only ones who dont live in their home towns anymore, so we always felt like outsiders when we go, on both sides. But theyre mostly nice people. I only wish I spent more time getting closer to them.

Generally just for weddings and funerals.

My mom's side of the family used to get together every year for Christmas time before the kids of my generation grew up and scattered to the winds, but that was always a nice time.

My dad's side of the family had one big family reunion, which was an awkward get together in Kansas and I was too young to remember much of it. There was a huge genealogy book though, which was pretty cool. I also thought it was cool that a distant ancestor had married a Cherokee princess, though decades later I learned that it was almost certainly untrue and that is a common lie rolled out by racists who felt that was a face-saving story when a man married any woman of color.

My mother-in-law had a family reunion in 2018 and I was glad to meet a lot of them.

My father-in-law's idea of "family" reunion is the Rainbow Gathering every year which has been a unique experience both times I attended (2013 and 2022).

My parents generation on both sides were the first to be born here, so its not a huge thing that we'd go out of our way to have. We see everyone at other events, which are okay enough. I'm not particularly close with a lot of them but they're nice enough