Summer is a wonderful time to gather with family and renew those bonds. Having fewer demands on our schedules allows us to get with people it might be more difficult to during the school year. Whether it be an evening together or a trip to have an extended amount of time together, taking advantage of available time to do things with people we care about enriches our lives and our relationships.

My husband and I just returned with our daughters from the biennial Hansen Family Reunion. We gather with my parents, siblings, and their spouses and children in a different location across the country each time. I am the second of the nine children of Kent and Paula Hansen and they have 24 grandchildren. These reunions are looked forward to with much anticipation and our large group garners a lot of attention from people in the area.

I have found that when people think of family reunions, they often think of gatherings that consist of descendants of an ancestor or all of the descendants of a great-grandparent. I have attended reunions like this and it is wonderful to be gathered with so many people who all have a common ancestor linking them together.

My maternal grandfather died when I was 4 and when I was in middle school I went with my grandmother to a reunion for all of his siblings and their families. I didn’t know any of the people there, but she had continued her bonds with them. I enjoyed hearing the stories of my grandfather that many of them came up and shared with me. I only have a few memories of him because I was so young when he died and we lived across the country from them. Talking with his siblings that day made him feel more real to me.

I think people shy away from having reunions now for many reasons. It is a lot of work to get it organized and ready. If you haven’t met for a long time it might be difficult to contact everyone and you might be worried about missing someone and hurting feelings. If your gathering might turn out to be large, you might think that you don’t have a large enough area for everyone. These are all valid concerns and there are surely many others.

Whenever there is a big situation in front of me, I always start small instead of worrying about the giant task. I think that if there is the desire to have a family reunion, you should start with reaching out to other siblings or cousins who might also be interested and divide up the work. The enthusiasm will spread and involving other people will allow you to utilize their abilities. Other people might know addresses and phone numbers of other relatives. Someone else might know of a great park where you could gather for a picnic. Once you have the first gathering, people will be eager to plan another one in the future.

For our Hansen Family Reunions, we select the location and the basic dates for our next reunion at the end of our current reunion. That gives us a chance to pencil it into our calendars and to start planning for something two years out. It took a while for my parents to relinquish some of the planning and preparations, but when I pointed out that their children were all adults and they had raised us to be very capable, they started delegating more of the assignments.

My parents belong to a timeshare, so they book condos for all the families that are in the same hallway. Each sibling and their spouse are in charge of a dinner or lunch. I make signs for the doors that have each individual’s names on them and then the theme that I use for each reunion, “Together We Stand Stronger.” We spend the week exploring the area where we are staying, playing games, and spending time at the pool or beach.

To kick off the week we play “Family Reunion Bingo” where everyone gets a blank Bingo sheet and they fill it in with the names of the family. Since there are so many of us, each Bingo sheet will look different from everyone else’s. Everyone then writes down on a slip of paper something that they’ve accomplished since our last reunion. This is a way to update the group on what we’ve been doing while playing a game. We write out slips for anyone who is missing so that they’re represented as well. I read off the papers and we all try to guess who the person is and then people mark that name off of their sheet. Prizes are given throughout as people get Bingos.

To help all of the cousins get to know each other, I started a “Secret Cousins” activity about 3 reunions ago. The age range of the cousins is from 7 to 27, so this is a way for them to engage with each other more throughout the week. They draw names on the first night and then are encouraged to do at least two things for that cousin during the week. It can be as simple as drawing them a picture or writing them a note or they can get them something if they want.

To centralize the Secret Cousins, I bring shopping bags that I’ve collected during the year and set them up inside the doorway of our condo. Each one is labeled for each family. I leave out paper, stickers, crayons, envelopes, etc. for the cousins to use when they come by to drop off things. It’s so fun to hear them whispering about what they’re doing and to hear their excitement when they find something in their bag that their cousin left for them. On the last night of the reunion all of the cousins go around and say something that they learned about their Secret Cousin during the week. It’s a really tender moment to hear these observations.

Whether or not you have ever been to a family reunion or if it’s been a long time, I would encourage you to consider gathering your family together. Consider just starting with something special with your immediate family to let them know they are worth celebrating. During our reunion we heard comments from strangers that “It’s too hard to get our family together.” Start small and go from there. Finding the time to get together, even for a few hours, will have lasting benefits as you renew your family bonds and show your children that they are part of something much larger and lasting.