How to Really Enjoy a Family Reunion
© Ruth Marlene Friesen
Do you DO Reunions? I have a sister and an aunt who have always said that they don’t “do” family reunions. But they are coming to one this weekend. That tickles me with delight. Because I’m going to see to it that they enjoy this one.
Why don’t some people care for family gatherings?
Very often the first reason is that they don’t feel close or connected to the extended family, and are afraid they’ll feel like outsiders.
Perhaps they remember unhappy scenes from their own family life, and fear such tensions will be present at the reunion too. Or they expect someone to be there who has hurt them in the past. Once wounded - twice shy, right?
I see several important values in having and attending family reunions, even if there is a chance of seeing someone who stirs up painful memories.
For rest of article see: How to Enjoy a Family Reunion
2nd article: Reunions R-EZee
© Ruth Marlene Friesen
Anyone can set up a reunion, even at next to zero-cost. If Dad’s cousin Pat can do it, you and I can too.
Pat has a ranch, loosely speaking, with her 13 horses at her son’s place next to hers, and huge patches of nettle and weeds growing there. But it is a serene and quiet place, with an untamed natural beauty.
Pat is not the world’s tidiest housekeeper, but she has a heart as huge as her whole ranch, and she knows a lot of relatives, and when she invites them, they come. Never mind if they have to be on the road for a week, as Bert did, driving up from Georgia, or several days as did Catheryn and her daughter Kelly from Washington. Anita and Henry brought their girls and Anita’s parents in their RV from Winnipeg… and so on.
Pat called it a Come N’ Go Reunion.
She had no real activities ready, but the half dozen children there on the Sunday, enjoyed a batch of kittens that they cuddled and traded between themselves. She jumped on a truck with some young guys and went to pick up a crate with young piglets for the kids to play with too. (I’m afraid they were a bit too big to cuddle).
Those of us who are genealogists and outgoing, just got right into making acquaintance, or renewing contacts with the relatives there, and sharing information. We had to hang on to our papers in the wind, or weigh them down with stones on the picnic tables, but we managed.
Since we got home, I’ve been thinking, how a reunion would look if I organized one? I don’t have all the space Pat does, but alternatives do exist. She makes it look so easy.
For rest of article see: Reunions-R-EZee
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