When I was a young kid and up until my late teens, my dad's side of the family had a few family reunions. I remember attending a few of them and seeing aunts, uncles and cousins galore. It mainly involved getting together to catch up, letting the cousins play and eating a lot of food. I think I had one or two aunts and my grandmother who set these reunions up. After graduating high school I don't remember any family reunions. If there was one, I didn't attend. I don't know if it was due to the cousins all growing up or the aunts and grandmother aging and not interested in continuing the work that it would take to plan the reunion..
This past weekend my wife and I attended a high school reunion. Our school was very small, so every two years there is one "all school" reunion. This year marks my 40th year since graduation and I had never been to one of the all school reunions. This year my sister was in charge and we decided it would be fun to go. We enjoyed it very much and enjoyed seeing people we haven't seen in many, many years. I was class of 1984 and my wife was class of 1987. There were five of us from my class and it was good to see them. I think there were four from my wife's class. We also got to see a few graduates that were a year or two above and below us and got to see our Principal and a couple of teachers. My high school math teacher was there and we were very surprised to see each other. That's him in the photo above.
We have vowed to continue to go to this school reunion every two years and try to encourage other classmates to come and join us all. My graduating class only had 18 and I would guess all other graduating classes were similar in size. So, you can see why the need for an all school reunion would work for this small town.
Reunion is an instance of two or more people coming together after a period of separation. With that definition, I have attended numerous small family reunions when I attend a funeral. Unfortunately, these are not happy reunions. Other small reunions my involve birthday parties, weddings, graduations, etc. You could have a small reunion when welcoming home a friend or family member after living away or welcoming home a service member after a lengthy time away in the military.
In retirement and with age these reunions may become more fun. Seeing and visiting with family and friends, that you haven't seen in awhile, is always fun. What kind of reunions do you enjoy? Does your family have regular family reunions? If so, who plans them and what type of activities does everyone do? Do you enjoy family or high school reunions or do you avoid them for some reason?
I had my 30th class reunion a few years back and three people showed up so we had 50% there. Yes, I graduated with 7 other students and we had perhaps 50 in our entire high school. The high school holds "all school" reunions annually but I have yet to go to one, mostly because I'm still too young. The average age of the attendees, from what I see from the pictures afterward, is still 20 years my senior.
ReplyDeleteFamily reunions are a different matter. We used to have them quite often and were well attended. But now there is only my dad left and he never had any interest in reunions. I hope at some point my brother and I will restart them again but our kids are either in school or recently out of school and have no time off for such things as traveling across a country for a reunion.
Wow, that was a small graduating class. I've heard the "I'm not old enough" from some of our alumni also. I don't think there is a certain age you have to be to enjoy these reunions. I will agree that the crowd seems to be on the older side. Our reunion had a lot of attendees in their 70's and 80's. No one was in attendance that had graduated in the last 20 years. They are all missing out!
DeleteA cousin & myself organized a maternal cousin reunion last summer. 9 of the 15 surviving cousins attended. Just the cousins, no spouses, children, grandchildren or aunts/uncles. It was well-received. Since then, another cousin has died. There used to be an annual reunion of my dad's family when my maternal grandma was alive. Now there's just us cousins, numbering 9. We aim for an informal gathering annually. The class reunion was 20 yrs ago. It's doubtful that I would attend another one after all these years.
ReplyDeleteGood job on organizing the family reunion!
DeleteMY dAD'S GENERATION HAD MANY FAMILY REUNIONS. When my generation came we wee spread out and didn't get together. In my school there were eight people who finished high school.
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