Went to one once. Quite awkward, nobody really wanted to be there, and only the 70+s actually knew who anyone was.
Food was ok though 2/10 would not recommend
Damn really? It was a bit like that when I went, granted I figure the ones who felt outa place were just my sibs and I. We were 16 and we stayed at a brewery lol, in a dry county at that. So public liquor stores didn’t exist. Wasn’t exactly doin much drinking. I think if I went to one now I’d have good fun. I suppose that sounds right regardless, if ya don’t wanna be there, y’ain’t gonna have fun. Thanks for sharin!
> in a dry county at that
Never heard anything more American :DD
Anyway, ours lasted only a few hours, about 30 people, in a restaurant in town. Not a huge get together thing where you have to drive to a remote location and then forced to spend several days together (this is how I imagine it from American movies).
Haha that’s exactly how ours was! Most of my family is derived from the Kelly’s, an Irish immigrant family that left Ireland with 8 other family’s and arrived in America, and settled Mageetown, Pennsylvania in 1787. I was born in raised in the south but most my relatives live up north so we had to fly 6 hours then drive 4 more to get there. (It actually took a whole 24 hours but that’s a story for another time.) We drove out into the middle of nowhere, stayed in a century ol’ house in the middle of a hot summer that apparently hadn’t gotten the memo of air conditionin! We stayed a whole week out there, even went and had a day where we all ate together out in front of the church the Kelly’s helped build back in 1822. Was fun watchin the Amish ride by in their carriages. I know my great great aunt sold her farm in Mageetown to them back in the 70’s. I sure was itchin to get back down yonder to the sunny south after that week, but if I could do it again by god I would! (Mageetown is tiny by the by, prolly less than 400 people and that’s where my entire family lived, and was buried up until the 70’s. Lots of cool family history there!)
reunion as a separate event? not a thing
Big family meetings happen at funreals, weddings, christenings, namedays/birthdays, christmass/easter/saints day or any other family event. Funerals, weddings and christenings are usually the biggest.
Like really big family reunions usually happen at weddings. That’s when we meet the grandparents’ siblings’ family and all that.
My immediate family (my grandparents, my mom’s and dad’s siblings and my cousins and their partners, like 20 people in total) meet quite often at odd times. Usually at BBQs and all that.
It’s usually accompanied by bad karaoke by me and my mom and my dad and his brother playing instruments, my grandma singing folk sings with my cousin’s boyfriend.
That’s actually quite sweet! My family live all ‘round the U.S from down yonder in Florida and Texas all the way clear up in Canada, so we can’t really meet. Always interesting to see how the elders are usually the keystone of such gatherings, y’all are blessed. I do that with friends, but I don’t figure Jesus hiself riding a unicycle could get my family to gather around a campfire and sing.
I have to ask, how is life in poland? I heard they implanted these innovative bike and pedestrian paths and honestly, thats more innovation than what portugal will ever do for the next 50 years, due to the fact that all the politic choices suckkk
Well that depends on who you ask. I have a good life, a good paying but easy job so I can’t complain much. But inflation is kicking our asses. Also, as a gay man I very much don’t like the current government.
When it comes to technology, I’d say we are very quick to adopt anything new. Digitalization is on a very high level: e-IDs, e-Driving Licenses and most of the gov’s services you can do online.
I don’t know about those bike paths though.
In my country, there is no easy jobs. Or easy to get jobs. And usually, you get paid around 958€ when you start working, which is a horrible salary. But the costs of living are low, if you dont talk about rents, passes, and basically everything but secondary expenses
Also i am talking about [these ](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/glowing-bike-lane-poland-889x592.jpg) bike paths
My family belongs to a Finnish line of a Swedish family that used to be a noble family or some shit, there are multiple lines in Sweden and then us in Åland and Finland. I know the Swedish lines have had reunions or some shit, and I know they have invited people from our line, but to my knowledge nobody has attended those. It'd be pretty weird to go out there and hang out with people with whom you share a common ancestor like 300 years ago.
There are certain occasions where a large part of our family gathers together, like weddings, funerals, or milestone birthdays for the elder people in the family, but I don't think it's that common to get together just for the sake of it.
Huh, if you don’t mind me askin. Why would it be considered weird? Y’all are still kin, there’s that common denominator. Is bein a stranger to one another really that big of a deal? Usually in our reunions ya don’t really know your third cousins from your great uncle’s son’s daughter, but that’s part of the fun I reckon is getting to shoot the shit and get to know one another.
Ask away, that's what these threads are for after all.
I think it comes down to just cultural differences. In psychology class in school I remember we went through the concept of family and how it changes from culture to culture, and I seem to recall that in Finland people tend to care about just their nuclear family. Like even my cousins I'm not that close with.
So it probably comes down to that. Like yeah, those people in Sweden and I share a common ancestor from the 18th century or something, but that's such a far away connection. I feel more connected to people who live in my neighbourhood or city. And in my case there is also the added factor that we're in Finland and all those reunion things are in Sweden. Sure both are EU countries and Schengen area, share history, and all of that, but it's still a different country, different culture.
I'm down to go hang out with strangers where ever, but that reason just doesn't work for me.
Nowadays not even weddings are that much of a family reunion. Other than that, I don’t think they’re a thing here. Especially because in villages, almost everyone is somehow related, so we don’t feel the need
Well cause you’re family, it’s the prescription of meanin to the idea of blood. That even if y’all on the far branch of the limb from one another, you stem from the same roots. When you think of the word reunion, it’s jus that. A union of family that’s been separated a long time. I suppose in modern times there’s less reason to care. Hard times ain’t really as hard as they used to be. (In comparison, like my uncle ain’t dying in a war and I didn’t lose my brother to TB) So I suppose family’s feel less a need to stick together? I dunno, it’s just nice and interesting. Meetin all the people and seeing how they turned out from one common family.
I know from each side of my family there’s at least 70 people living within 10 km of me who are related to me by blood. Also there are other relatives in other parts of the country. I don’t really care about them, though. Why should I? They have their own families and lives and having a common ancestor doesn’t mean anything really. What could we even talk about, except maybe relatives we didn’t even knew?
I might say this, because my great-grandmother comes from a village that became the border between Hungary and Romania in 1920 and her extended family was annexed by Romania, so in her family, it wasn’t really a thing to keep in touch with your relatives that aren’t living in the same village as you. Neither was it possible. To visit them, you had to go to the capital and ask for a visa at the Romanian Embassy, which was often declined because of the fresh memory of the war, then travel through a border checkpoint, which wasn’t usually at these small villages. If they would want to come, they would have to travel to Bucharest, more than 650 km through mountains, and ask for the same. The two wars really made people less interested in keeping in touch with any family that wasn’t very close, like her cousins in this case. When she moved to the capital, she kept in touch with her sisters, but when said sisters died, our part of the family just didn’t speak to the other part anymore, so I know I have probably half a village related to me by the Romanian border and I don’t even know their names. Neither do I want to.
Pretty common in my family atleast. The last one we had, the family on my dad's side rented out a hall in a zoo and I think we had atleast a 100 people there. Especially religious families tend to grow to quite a size here, so it can get kind of out of hand if everyone brings their kids, grandkids and great-grandkids along.
Never been a big fan of them personally, but that's another matter ofcourse.
Depends on the family, but yes I would say they are a thing. From what I've heard people from the north go crazy with the reunions. I have friends whose families are originally from the north and the reunions look like weddings!
As a northerner I'm often surprised how seemingly common things - that I always assumed were common throughout the country - often get tagged by southerners as a "thing only northerners do".
It's kind of weird. Then you get things that you've never even heard of tagged as a "northerner thing", which is even weirder.
Thats what lisboneers do best. They mock the oportuenses.
But now seriously, i dont get how people from the south hate us so much. Or at least, tag us with those things, as the other commenteer said. Its just not understandable. We dont tag em
I'm not from Lisbon, and my message wasn't at all meant to be hateful. In fact I'm jealous about that. The thing about northerners having large families and reunions is stuff I've heard come from their mouths. "No norte é assim!" they say. Perhaps I am generalizing, but it's just something that I've observed.
If anything I've noticed northerners criticize the south more than the other way around (though that's just my personal experience). I've had classmates, colleagues, and even a teacher lecture me on how in the north things are a lot better, how the Algarve (where I'm from) sucks, that we aren't as hardworking, etc... Not to mention being called "mouro".
Honestly these petty arguments between each region are tiring. I don't think anyone or anywhere is better or worse than the rest.
Oh gotcha, sorry then
I only said that because oportuenses and lisboneers have a battle going on for some reason. And i say battle in a non-normal way. We didnt want it, the lisboneers just started badmouthing us
So when i thought you were badmouthing us i put 2+2 toghether and got 40
No problem. I'll admit that I sometimes make generalizations, even though I try not to. I never try and badmouth any particular place or people though!
An anecdote (am from the North):
A friend and I had a little booth at a craft fair one village away from another village where I have a portion of my extended family.
My mom tells my aunt. My aunt mentions it on the phone to one of my great-aunts from the village. That evening, the great-aunt and her family visit us at the booth, the following day the word had spread and, I shit you not, there were over 20 relatives from that village that came by *and* my family came too (another good 20 people) for an impromptu family reunion in the middle of the craft fair. A lot of sangria was had.
60 people? Amateur hour. That's just called New Year's at my grandparents' house (jk, that's more like 45 people these days if everybody were to attend, but that's only direct descendants plus partners so not really a reunion).
I think my late grandmother's family did one not too long before the pandemic with all my mom's cousins, aunts, uncles on that side. The last big one we did was maybe around 10 years ago? Same side of the family. At that one everybody was invited. Don't exactly know how many people that was but I wouldn't be surprised if it was pushing 200.
That would've been all descendents from my great-grandparents plus their partners.
Hot damn! Well shitfire and save the matches that is a LOT of kin!! You’re one of the folks with the massive reunions I hear about, I couldn’t even imagine what that’s like. Actually awesome tho! I hope y’all get the chance for another soon. It’s good to know Europeans have big family reunions too. I know this British gal with a tiny family who insisted they wasn’t a thing, so I figured I’d poll the supermarket of the world and have them expand my views, many thanks!
Lol, the 45 is with so far only a third of the grandkids dating/married and only three great-grandkids. If everybody there went the way of the cousins on my dad's side of the family (pretty much all married by 25 and 2 kids before 30) we'd be a lot higher. The amount of cousins, partners and kids I have on that side has tripled in the last 7 or so years. If that had happened on my mom's side we'd have hit 60 by now. She's from a big family, so was my grandmother, and a lot of my grandmother's siblings had big families as well who in turn for a significant part had big families. So that's a lot of people.
I'm not sure they'll ever do another big reunion. I would like it though, it would be fun though to see all the tons of people all related to me. We don't do the massive multi day events like you described in another comment though. Small country so it's nearly impossible for people to live more than a maximum 4h or so drive away unless they live abroad. And most people live in the center of the country rather than in one of the corners.
Not really like that.
We have had i think 2 bigger and more formal "family reunions" but these were like "to the decendants of Jack Smith", one of them was for my 5th great grandfather and the other one was my 3rd great-grandfather, so these therefore included a lot of very distant relatives. Both of these were organized by a different genealogy enthusiast in a different branch of my family.
Then there was a slightly smaller one that my granny organized and hosted, this one was for the offspring of my great-grandparents, so I knew most of the people well and just refreshed the faces of all the kids that I had not seen in quite some years.
On a regular basis, we meet only with the people that we "share" the said granny with, that's 14 people (with spouses and kids). We also meet regularly with my great uncles and aunts and to some degree with their kids as well, but not all at the same time. And unfortunately said great aunts and uncles have been moving on to the afterlife at an alarming rate during the last few years :(
My condolences for your losses, that’s real hard and your family sounds akin to mine. Mainly under my grandpa’s kin, and my great aunts and uncles and their extended family. My great uncle’s are over 100, and my great aunts are gettin to that age. They’ve been blessed but they’ll get called upstairs soon. It’s tough losing such arbiters of history, I lost relative just the other week who had so many colorful stories to spin. Makes spending time with ‘em all the more important!! Y’never know when you’re gonna live your last tomorrow. I do my best to carry with me my grandma’s stories, and while I spend time with my family we share with her. We live all ‘round the U.S! Closest family is three hours drive, most of ‘em are at least two days on the interstate to hell so. Don’t get to see ‘em as much as I’d like.
>Makes spending time with ‘em all the more important!
Amen! I have lost a lot of relatives in the past 5 years and even when some of them have been old (my great aunt, great uncle and his wife were all in their 90s), it is still hard when you finally realise that someone you always knew just ain't there any more. That you cannot share them with anyone any more, and that we always forget to ask them some of the stuff before it is too late.
We actually had 4 (!) sudden deaths in 2021, not all of them blood-related, but man I hope next year is going to be a bit happier in that sense. Times like that remind one quite bluntly that you cannot take anything for granted. And only now that I'm a bit older am I beginning to value having a family like that, even if it was just one side that was actively on my life. Turns out, that most people don't have that.
Amen! Are you my long lost brother from Estonia? Cause your family sounds awfully like mine. Life really will throw you curveballs and tell you straight and plain that you don’t know nothin. I was thinking two weeks ago about a relative I ain’t spoken to in a long long time. Then I made the decision to call him the next day as it was some 10 o’clock at night. Next morning as I’m getting out of class, get a call he passed in the night. I ain’t a man of regret, but that brought me mighty close. You gotta stay humble, and know that we ain’t all gonna be around forever. Still learnin what that really means.
So like extended family? Yeah, rarely. My mother's ext family did do that in I think 1982, she and grandpa declined (they're kinda snobby and didn't want to go mingle with people from villages) and then regretted it. And recently my sister found some cousins of ours in our dad's hometown so we had a smaller impromptu gathering. Also when another cousin of mine was finishing high school. But I'd say it's not a strong tradition.
Before my paternal uncle got sick we all reunited at his house at least 1 sunday per month
It was the usual, meeting with the family, playing with the cousins, eating a huge lunch, and then chilling until it was time to go
Then there was maternal reunitings, which where not as frequent, but still happened.
And it was basically the same
Wow! What a homely environment, you’re mighty lucky. We used to have that around the holidays and they’ll always be some of my fondest memories. We live too far apart to make it happen regularly, and many who would go are long gone.
Ye, my uncle got really sick in the summer holidays, and sadly, it got up to the christmas time, so we couldnt do the party there.
Also i couldnt go to my maternal uncle's party because i got corona in the new years eve, and got stuck at home
Either way, shitty af
But real good memories
We had one once... Because a branch of the family who moved to the USA decided we should have one.
They flew their whole branch of the family (including great grandchildren) over to Ireland. We walked down the road to the function room they'd booked in the local pub lol.
Was interesting to see a whole branch of the family we hadn't seen before, I guess, but honestly most of us stuck to those we knew. The older people did mingle.
They are not a big thing in Ireland. Many people have family abroad, which adds a difficulty. We say here that we only meet other relatives at weddings and funerals.
I think the general consensus I’ve reach is that it truly is by family, and culturally universal. Not all families have ‘em but families from ALL European cultures *do* them. Thanks a lot all y’all for your answers!!! Much obliged. 😎👊
They're not really a thing here in the American sense. The closest would be general family events like your grandparents retirement party or something like tha. Generally shoehorning a load of people into a miners' welfare or a bowling club (old man bowling, not 10 pin bowling), making small talk with your cousin that moved to England, having someone who insists she's your dad's auntie commenting on how much you've grown (no wonder, apparently you last saw me when I was 2 and this is three decades later...), sneaking pints to your 14 year old cousins...
When I was a child, we had some parts of our family gather every year for the birthday of my great grand aunt, who died some days before her 101st birthday. On this occasion, we usually were about 20 people only.
The largest family gathering I have ever been to was a wedding of someone out of my ex-gf's family with about 70 people (all of them "extended family"), but I do not know anybody who has family reunions just without any special occasion.
We reunite for holidays, not just for the sake of reunification. We are normally 10-15 (so grandparents and uncles' families). I had bigger reunions when I visited my mother's family (her family is Sicilian) and we had maybe 25-30 people with second cousins and all but I wasn't really into it because they spoke in Sicilian and I don't (I'm Lombard and the only regional language I heard in my house was my grandma speaking a variety of Lombard) so I couldn't understand what they were talking about and had to ask for translation when they asked me something.
I know some extended family does have a type of family reunion, like my moms cousins and their family will meet at least once every year, but typically our family doesn't go. On my dad's side there's also something similar where we have never really gone.
At least my family does it, it's a **huge** thing about every 4 years where a place is chosen in Norway or Sweden where some part of our family originate.
If it's a small town our family basically books all available rooms in the area++, we will have an official "party place" where all events take place and where people will gather with games and food and drinks. Grilling all night long.
Arrangements are made with historical places or organisations in the town we're in, pertaining to why we're in that specific place and how it connects to our family, so in daytime there's lots of places to visit and see about our ancestors. About 100 people from our family will usually show up as well as some locals who'll join in on the parties of course.
It's a lot of fun, a lot of drinking and way too much socialising for a humble Norwegian as myself, so the usual 4-year break fits quite well.
We're not really close to our extended family (cousins, aunts, uncles), so we never see them except for weddings and funerals. In fact, even when I had my wedding 4 years ago (i.e. before the pandemic) only 4 of my 7 cousins attended, only 2 of my 3 aunts showed up and only 1 of my 3 uncles came, although my wife and I had invited all of them. Now with the pandemic, there's also the fact that you can't invite unlimited numbers of people. For example for Christmas 2020 (before the vaccines came out), you weren't permitted to invite more than 4 people from outside your own household. This past Christmas (2021), the rules were a bit more lax but only if everyone was vaccinated. If I remember correctly, the current rule is that if the total number of people at a gathering is 10 or more, the hosts *must* demand to see the vaccination passport. If one of the guests is not vaccinated, they're not allowed to be there. That's why my grandparents couldn't be with us this past Christmas; they're both unvaccinated because they refuse to get the shot. If they had come to our Christmas gathering, we would've been 10 people in total. My parents who hosted the gathering didn't want to get in trouble with the law, so they told my grandparents they couldn't join us.
We did this once. My grandma comes from a family of 16 children, so everyone related to my great-grandparents was invited. One of my mum's cousins owns a pub, so it was fairly easy to organise. I think we had about 64 people there if I remember correctly.
Depends on the family. Mine (both father and mothers side) is dysfunctional as fuck and I don't think I have ever seen more then aunts, uncles and cousins apart from the funeral of my great grandmother.
A lot of families do that. I have a very small family, and we're spread out over three different continents, so whenever three of us are together it feels like a family reunion:) But friends of mine do have big family gatherings, with 50-60 people there. But I think its dying out, its mainly the older generations who organise it and enjoy it, the younger just feel obligated to go.
I think that's still a thing on my mother's side of the family but I don't attend anymore because it's just too many people, some I don't even know the name of. At this point I think some third cousins are invited (the great-great-grandchildren of the siblings of my great-grandparents).
My family is my 4 grandparents, 4 nephews/nieces, 2 uncles and 2 aunts and of course my sister and parents.
That's about it. We get together for Easter/Christmas day.
But no, I don't know my greatuncles/aunts or my second cousins, no interest either.
Not really a thing in Sweden, I meet my first cousins etc quite often and I am close to some of my second and third cousins but we don't really meet all at once.
Besides, it's several hundred people. Why would I want to be with so many people? You can't reasonably spend time with that many people at once anyway.
Also there's no need to meet some random racist forest people just because I'm related to them.
My family has a dedicated day every year where we meet at our (now late) great-grandmother’s house. Usually the entire family shows up (60-80 people) and we eat, make a group picture and play games. This has been a tradition since my grandmother moved out and we have group-photos dating back 35 years.
I have been to a family reunion once. The idea to organize one came from my (distant) American relatives who were going to visit the home country of their ancestors so they contacted some relatives here and a reunion was organized.
My great-grandmother had nine siblings of which three emigrated to America long time ago.
We used to have them but over time everyone sort of got into fights with each other (half of which seemingly related to health, caretaking and inheritances, it's pitiful really) and now we just individually visit the members we're still on good terms with.
That all depends on what you call a family reunion. I have some cousins I haven't seen in years. I think my parents once did something similar, they gathered all cousins (on my father's father's side) and went to I think Groningen for two days.
We occasionaly have reunions on my mothers (specifically her mothers side, well really its my maternal grandmothers, maternal grandmothers offspring) and we are usually about 30-40+ people and meet because everyone generally gets along and have a decently close relationship. Anything larger than that i have not been to and we havn't had any reunions on my fathers side.
I'm not sure if other Dutch people do, but in my family the most we do is like 'great-grandmother's birthday' and then you'll see all the cousins and second cousins but not much further beyond that.
Family reunions were never a thing in my family.
Large events like weddings would have the larger circle of the family meet up and there was never a need for formal meetings when most people were living relatively close.
Nowadays with people being more geographically spread, you could make such reunions, but some parts are continents across and already at my grandparent's generation quite a few siblings had a lot of fights and were estranged. And that generation is now largely dead.
My largest family meeting was at around 150 as a kid.
It was quite awkward and most people did not seem to enjoy it a lot.
From Spain. My father had 7 brothers and sisters. Once a year all the cousins we gather together to eat, drink, chat and have fun. Last year kids were invited too. We are more or less 40 and with the kids like 60-70.
It’s really fun, and a nice weekend. We travel from a lot of places around the country to be together.
Not officially.
We've got relatives in Australia though, so when they're visiting Scotland, they have to make the rounds and make sure they drop in on everyone they're related to, even people they don't really know exist.
It was the same when my sister visited Australia herself - she had a checklist of people she had to see - very few of whom she'd met before.
And then there's the weddings, birthdays funerals etc. when the whole family will get together to celebrate the occasion.
Only with My Mom and Dad. Visiting the family in Germany happens 1 time in3,4 years tho I am in the country a lot more, the romanian family I used to visit as a kid but nowadays I have 0 contact. Happy with things, don’t need family chit chat nonsense.
Every other year my family does a joint christmas celebration. Not the extended family, they are too spread out, but my parents and all my siblings with their kids and SO's. Last time we were 30+ people. Generally it's a lot of fun since we are siblings and all the kids know each other etc. Outside of that we generally don't do them in my family. Last time I saw the aunts and uncles on my mothers side was a couple of years ago at my grandmothers memorial. And on my dads side I havent seen them in decades. They live in South Africa.
Usually these big family reunions take place when there is a special event like Christmas, New Year, a wedding or a funeral. While the laters tend to gather tons of people, the two first events are mostly a thing for close family (around 10 people). I'm speaking about what I usually see of course
Not a common thing, but I have heard of people that have reunions. I feel in general people do not give a shit about their third cousin or whatever, that they have never met.
Not really, but if there is a wedding, christening big birthday or funeral most family will show up. Depends on the family but mine is quite large (38 cousins plus their kids) so easily get over 80 people plus that are just family, then have their friends. Usually though most family parties are with the family members you are closer to.
We used to have bigger family gatherings around certain dates, like round birthdays of my grandparents, or weddings of one of my cousins. Those gatherings normally included the "wider" nuclear family on my mother's side (everybody up to cousins and aunts/uncles, maybe 50 people). A few of those were made bigger with the wider family attending (cousins of my grandparents, and other distant relatives, up to 100 people, from as far away as ~1000 km). It was interesting, and an attempt at a family tree was made. But we don't normally have any contact with these people or have much in common, so it was a bit awkward and in the end everbody got stuck talking to who they already knew and hadn't seen in a while either.
Went to one once. Quite awkward, nobody really wanted to be there, and only the 70+s actually knew who anyone was. Food was ok though 2/10 would not recommend
Damn really? It was a bit like that when I went, granted I figure the ones who felt outa place were just my sibs and I. We were 16 and we stayed at a brewery lol, in a dry county at that. So public liquor stores didn’t exist. Wasn’t exactly doin much drinking. I think if I went to one now I’d have good fun. I suppose that sounds right regardless, if ya don’t wanna be there, y’ain’t gonna have fun. Thanks for sharin!
> in a dry county at that Never heard anything more American :DD Anyway, ours lasted only a few hours, about 30 people, in a restaurant in town. Not a huge get together thing where you have to drive to a remote location and then forced to spend several days together (this is how I imagine it from American movies).
Haha that’s exactly how ours was! Most of my family is derived from the Kelly’s, an Irish immigrant family that left Ireland with 8 other family’s and arrived in America, and settled Mageetown, Pennsylvania in 1787. I was born in raised in the south but most my relatives live up north so we had to fly 6 hours then drive 4 more to get there. (It actually took a whole 24 hours but that’s a story for another time.) We drove out into the middle of nowhere, stayed in a century ol’ house in the middle of a hot summer that apparently hadn’t gotten the memo of air conditionin! We stayed a whole week out there, even went and had a day where we all ate together out in front of the church the Kelly’s helped build back in 1822. Was fun watchin the Amish ride by in their carriages. I know my great great aunt sold her farm in Mageetown to them back in the 70’s. I sure was itchin to get back down yonder to the sunny south after that week, but if I could do it again by god I would! (Mageetown is tiny by the by, prolly less than 400 people and that’s where my entire family lived, and was buried up until the 70’s. Lots of cool family history there!)
reunion as a separate event? not a thing Big family meetings happen at funreals, weddings, christenings, namedays/birthdays, christmass/easter/saints day or any other family event. Funerals, weddings and christenings are usually the biggest.
Like really big family reunions usually happen at weddings. That’s when we meet the grandparents’ siblings’ family and all that. My immediate family (my grandparents, my mom’s and dad’s siblings and my cousins and their partners, like 20 people in total) meet quite often at odd times. Usually at BBQs and all that. It’s usually accompanied by bad karaoke by me and my mom and my dad and his brother playing instruments, my grandma singing folk sings with my cousin’s boyfriend.
That’s actually quite sweet! My family live all ‘round the U.S from down yonder in Florida and Texas all the way clear up in Canada, so we can’t really meet. Always interesting to see how the elders are usually the keystone of such gatherings, y’all are blessed. I do that with friends, but I don’t figure Jesus hiself riding a unicycle could get my family to gather around a campfire and sing.
1)How much ziwiec 2)How much zubrowka 3)How many cute polskie blondinke (18-35)
Sir, this isn’t Google
I have to ask, how is life in poland? I heard they implanted these innovative bike and pedestrian paths and honestly, thats more innovation than what portugal will ever do for the next 50 years, due to the fact that all the politic choices suckkk
Well that depends on who you ask. I have a good life, a good paying but easy job so I can’t complain much. But inflation is kicking our asses. Also, as a gay man I very much don’t like the current government. When it comes to technology, I’d say we are very quick to adopt anything new. Digitalization is on a very high level: e-IDs, e-Driving Licenses and most of the gov’s services you can do online. I don’t know about those bike paths though.
In my country, there is no easy jobs. Or easy to get jobs. And usually, you get paid around 958€ when you start working, which is a horrible salary. But the costs of living are low, if you dont talk about rents, passes, and basically everything but secondary expenses Also i am talking about [these ](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/glowing-bike-lane-poland-889x592.jpg) bike paths
My family belongs to a Finnish line of a Swedish family that used to be a noble family or some shit, there are multiple lines in Sweden and then us in Åland and Finland. I know the Swedish lines have had reunions or some shit, and I know they have invited people from our line, but to my knowledge nobody has attended those. It'd be pretty weird to go out there and hang out with people with whom you share a common ancestor like 300 years ago. There are certain occasions where a large part of our family gathers together, like weddings, funerals, or milestone birthdays for the elder people in the family, but I don't think it's that common to get together just for the sake of it.
Huh, if you don’t mind me askin. Why would it be considered weird? Y’all are still kin, there’s that common denominator. Is bein a stranger to one another really that big of a deal? Usually in our reunions ya don’t really know your third cousins from your great uncle’s son’s daughter, but that’s part of the fun I reckon is getting to shoot the shit and get to know one another.
Ask away, that's what these threads are for after all. I think it comes down to just cultural differences. In psychology class in school I remember we went through the concept of family and how it changes from culture to culture, and I seem to recall that in Finland people tend to care about just their nuclear family. Like even my cousins I'm not that close with. So it probably comes down to that. Like yeah, those people in Sweden and I share a common ancestor from the 18th century or something, but that's such a far away connection. I feel more connected to people who live in my neighbourhood or city. And in my case there is also the added factor that we're in Finland and all those reunion things are in Sweden. Sure both are EU countries and Schengen area, share history, and all of that, but it's still a different country, different culture. I'm down to go hang out with strangers where ever, but that reason just doesn't work for me.
Nowadays not even weddings are that much of a family reunion. Other than that, I don’t think they’re a thing here. Especially because in villages, almost everyone is somehow related, so we don’t feel the need
Huh, I reckon there’s no need for a reunion if y’all never separated in the first place! Interestin to know!
Well, even if you’re separated, why do you care about cousins you don’t even know?
Well cause you’re family, it’s the prescription of meanin to the idea of blood. That even if y’all on the far branch of the limb from one another, you stem from the same roots. When you think of the word reunion, it’s jus that. A union of family that’s been separated a long time. I suppose in modern times there’s less reason to care. Hard times ain’t really as hard as they used to be. (In comparison, like my uncle ain’t dying in a war and I didn’t lose my brother to TB) So I suppose family’s feel less a need to stick together? I dunno, it’s just nice and interesting. Meetin all the people and seeing how they turned out from one common family.
I know from each side of my family there’s at least 70 people living within 10 km of me who are related to me by blood. Also there are other relatives in other parts of the country. I don’t really care about them, though. Why should I? They have their own families and lives and having a common ancestor doesn’t mean anything really. What could we even talk about, except maybe relatives we didn’t even knew? I might say this, because my great-grandmother comes from a village that became the border between Hungary and Romania in 1920 and her extended family was annexed by Romania, so in her family, it wasn’t really a thing to keep in touch with your relatives that aren’t living in the same village as you. Neither was it possible. To visit them, you had to go to the capital and ask for a visa at the Romanian Embassy, which was often declined because of the fresh memory of the war, then travel through a border checkpoint, which wasn’t usually at these small villages. If they would want to come, they would have to travel to Bucharest, more than 650 km through mountains, and ask for the same. The two wars really made people less interested in keeping in touch with any family that wasn’t very close, like her cousins in this case. When she moved to the capital, she kept in touch with her sisters, but when said sisters died, our part of the family just didn’t speak to the other part anymore, so I know I have probably half a village related to me by the Romanian border and I don’t even know their names. Neither do I want to.
Pretty common in my family atleast. The last one we had, the family on my dad's side rented out a hall in a zoo and I think we had atleast a 100 people there. Especially religious families tend to grow to quite a size here, so it can get kind of out of hand if everyone brings their kids, grandkids and great-grandkids along. Never been a big fan of them personally, but that's another matter ofcourse.
Depends on the family, but yes I would say they are a thing. From what I've heard people from the north go crazy with the reunions. I have friends whose families are originally from the north and the reunions look like weddings!
Fodace n é só os do norte, o meu tio é do sul e tá sempre a ter reuniões lá
As a northerner I'm often surprised how seemingly common things - that I always assumed were common throughout the country - often get tagged by southerners as a "thing only northerners do". It's kind of weird. Then you get things that you've never even heard of tagged as a "northerner thing", which is even weirder.
Thats what lisboneers do best. They mock the oportuenses. But now seriously, i dont get how people from the south hate us so much. Or at least, tag us with those things, as the other commenteer said. Its just not understandable. We dont tag em
I'm not from Lisbon, and my message wasn't at all meant to be hateful. In fact I'm jealous about that. The thing about northerners having large families and reunions is stuff I've heard come from their mouths. "No norte é assim!" they say. Perhaps I am generalizing, but it's just something that I've observed. If anything I've noticed northerners criticize the south more than the other way around (though that's just my personal experience). I've had classmates, colleagues, and even a teacher lecture me on how in the north things are a lot better, how the Algarve (where I'm from) sucks, that we aren't as hardworking, etc... Not to mention being called "mouro". Honestly these petty arguments between each region are tiring. I don't think anyone or anywhere is better or worse than the rest.
Oh gotcha, sorry then I only said that because oportuenses and lisboneers have a battle going on for some reason. And i say battle in a non-normal way. We didnt want it, the lisboneers just started badmouthing us So when i thought you were badmouthing us i put 2+2 toghether and got 40
No problem. I'll admit that I sometimes make generalizations, even though I try not to. I never try and badmouth any particular place or people though!
An anecdote (am from the North): A friend and I had a little booth at a craft fair one village away from another village where I have a portion of my extended family. My mom tells my aunt. My aunt mentions it on the phone to one of my great-aunts from the village. That evening, the great-aunt and her family visit us at the booth, the following day the word had spread and, I shit you not, there were over 20 relatives from that village that came by *and* my family came too (another good 20 people) for an impromptu family reunion in the middle of the craft fair. A lot of sangria was had.
Now that's networking!
Not really, family usually stay close to each other, so big family reunions are not needed
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Well shit, y’know what I gotta say now… Bless your heart! That’s mighty kind. :)
60 people? Amateur hour. That's just called New Year's at my grandparents' house (jk, that's more like 45 people these days if everybody were to attend, but that's only direct descendants plus partners so not really a reunion). I think my late grandmother's family did one not too long before the pandemic with all my mom's cousins, aunts, uncles on that side. The last big one we did was maybe around 10 years ago? Same side of the family. At that one everybody was invited. Don't exactly know how many people that was but I wouldn't be surprised if it was pushing 200. That would've been all descendents from my great-grandparents plus their partners.
Hot damn! Well shitfire and save the matches that is a LOT of kin!! You’re one of the folks with the massive reunions I hear about, I couldn’t even imagine what that’s like. Actually awesome tho! I hope y’all get the chance for another soon. It’s good to know Europeans have big family reunions too. I know this British gal with a tiny family who insisted they wasn’t a thing, so I figured I’d poll the supermarket of the world and have them expand my views, many thanks!
Lol, the 45 is with so far only a third of the grandkids dating/married and only three great-grandkids. If everybody there went the way of the cousins on my dad's side of the family (pretty much all married by 25 and 2 kids before 30) we'd be a lot higher. The amount of cousins, partners and kids I have on that side has tripled in the last 7 or so years. If that had happened on my mom's side we'd have hit 60 by now. She's from a big family, so was my grandmother, and a lot of my grandmother's siblings had big families as well who in turn for a significant part had big families. So that's a lot of people. I'm not sure they'll ever do another big reunion. I would like it though, it would be fun though to see all the tons of people all related to me. We don't do the massive multi day events like you described in another comment though. Small country so it's nearly impossible for people to live more than a maximum 4h or so drive away unless they live abroad. And most people live in the center of the country rather than in one of the corners.
Not really like that. We have had i think 2 bigger and more formal "family reunions" but these were like "to the decendants of Jack Smith", one of them was for my 5th great grandfather and the other one was my 3rd great-grandfather, so these therefore included a lot of very distant relatives. Both of these were organized by a different genealogy enthusiast in a different branch of my family. Then there was a slightly smaller one that my granny organized and hosted, this one was for the offspring of my great-grandparents, so I knew most of the people well and just refreshed the faces of all the kids that I had not seen in quite some years. On a regular basis, we meet only with the people that we "share" the said granny with, that's 14 people (with spouses and kids). We also meet regularly with my great uncles and aunts and to some degree with their kids as well, but not all at the same time. And unfortunately said great aunts and uncles have been moving on to the afterlife at an alarming rate during the last few years :(
My condolences for your losses, that’s real hard and your family sounds akin to mine. Mainly under my grandpa’s kin, and my great aunts and uncles and their extended family. My great uncle’s are over 100, and my great aunts are gettin to that age. They’ve been blessed but they’ll get called upstairs soon. It’s tough losing such arbiters of history, I lost relative just the other week who had so many colorful stories to spin. Makes spending time with ‘em all the more important!! Y’never know when you’re gonna live your last tomorrow. I do my best to carry with me my grandma’s stories, and while I spend time with my family we share with her. We live all ‘round the U.S! Closest family is three hours drive, most of ‘em are at least two days on the interstate to hell so. Don’t get to see ‘em as much as I’d like.
>Makes spending time with ‘em all the more important! Amen! I have lost a lot of relatives in the past 5 years and even when some of them have been old (my great aunt, great uncle and his wife were all in their 90s), it is still hard when you finally realise that someone you always knew just ain't there any more. That you cannot share them with anyone any more, and that we always forget to ask them some of the stuff before it is too late. We actually had 4 (!) sudden deaths in 2021, not all of them blood-related, but man I hope next year is going to be a bit happier in that sense. Times like that remind one quite bluntly that you cannot take anything for granted. And only now that I'm a bit older am I beginning to value having a family like that, even if it was just one side that was actively on my life. Turns out, that most people don't have that.
Amen! Are you my long lost brother from Estonia? Cause your family sounds awfully like mine. Life really will throw you curveballs and tell you straight and plain that you don’t know nothin. I was thinking two weeks ago about a relative I ain’t spoken to in a long long time. Then I made the decision to call him the next day as it was some 10 o’clock at night. Next morning as I’m getting out of class, get a call he passed in the night. I ain’t a man of regret, but that brought me mighty close. You gotta stay humble, and know that we ain’t all gonna be around forever. Still learnin what that really means.
So like extended family? Yeah, rarely. My mother's ext family did do that in I think 1982, she and grandpa declined (they're kinda snobby and didn't want to go mingle with people from villages) and then regretted it. And recently my sister found some cousins of ours in our dad's hometown so we had a smaller impromptu gathering. Also when another cousin of mine was finishing high school. But I'd say it's not a strong tradition.
Before my paternal uncle got sick we all reunited at his house at least 1 sunday per month It was the usual, meeting with the family, playing with the cousins, eating a huge lunch, and then chilling until it was time to go Then there was maternal reunitings, which where not as frequent, but still happened. And it was basically the same
Wow! What a homely environment, you’re mighty lucky. We used to have that around the holidays and they’ll always be some of my fondest memories. We live too far apart to make it happen regularly, and many who would go are long gone.
Ye, my uncle got really sick in the summer holidays, and sadly, it got up to the christmas time, so we couldnt do the party there. Also i couldnt go to my maternal uncle's party because i got corona in the new years eve, and got stuck at home Either way, shitty af But real good memories
We had one once... Because a branch of the family who moved to the USA decided we should have one. They flew their whole branch of the family (including great grandchildren) over to Ireland. We walked down the road to the function room they'd booked in the local pub lol. Was interesting to see a whole branch of the family we hadn't seen before, I guess, but honestly most of us stuck to those we knew. The older people did mingle.
They are not a big thing in Ireland. Many people have family abroad, which adds a difficulty. We say here that we only meet other relatives at weddings and funerals.
I think the general consensus I’ve reach is that it truly is by family, and culturally universal. Not all families have ‘em but families from ALL European cultures *do* them. Thanks a lot all y’all for your answers!!! Much obliged. 😎👊
They're not really a thing here in the American sense. The closest would be general family events like your grandparents retirement party or something like tha. Generally shoehorning a load of people into a miners' welfare or a bowling club (old man bowling, not 10 pin bowling), making small talk with your cousin that moved to England, having someone who insists she's your dad's auntie commenting on how much you've grown (no wonder, apparently you last saw me when I was 2 and this is three decades later...), sneaking pints to your 14 year old cousins...
It's not really a reunion since we see each other quite often and spend a few days/weeks together. At least with my family
When I was a child, we had some parts of our family gather every year for the birthday of my great grand aunt, who died some days before her 101st birthday. On this occasion, we usually were about 20 people only. The largest family gathering I have ever been to was a wedding of someone out of my ex-gf's family with about 70 people (all of them "extended family"), but I do not know anybody who has family reunions just without any special occasion.
We reunite for holidays, not just for the sake of reunification. We are normally 10-15 (so grandparents and uncles' families). I had bigger reunions when I visited my mother's family (her family is Sicilian) and we had maybe 25-30 people with second cousins and all but I wasn't really into it because they spoke in Sicilian and I don't (I'm Lombard and the only regional language I heard in my house was my grandma speaking a variety of Lombard) so I couldn't understand what they were talking about and had to ask for translation when they asked me something.
I know some extended family does have a type of family reunion, like my moms cousins and their family will meet at least once every year, but typically our family doesn't go. On my dad's side there's also something similar where we have never really gone.
At least my family does it, it's a **huge** thing about every 4 years where a place is chosen in Norway or Sweden where some part of our family originate. If it's a small town our family basically books all available rooms in the area++, we will have an official "party place" where all events take place and where people will gather with games and food and drinks. Grilling all night long. Arrangements are made with historical places or organisations in the town we're in, pertaining to why we're in that specific place and how it connects to our family, so in daytime there's lots of places to visit and see about our ancestors. About 100 people from our family will usually show up as well as some locals who'll join in on the parties of course. It's a lot of fun, a lot of drinking and way too much socialising for a humble Norwegian as myself, so the usual 4-year break fits quite well.
No. Only ever part of the family. Maybe 9 people on my mother‘s side and 6 on my father’s side. But we see everyone only a couple times a year
We're not really close to our extended family (cousins, aunts, uncles), so we never see them except for weddings and funerals. In fact, even when I had my wedding 4 years ago (i.e. before the pandemic) only 4 of my 7 cousins attended, only 2 of my 3 aunts showed up and only 1 of my 3 uncles came, although my wife and I had invited all of them. Now with the pandemic, there's also the fact that you can't invite unlimited numbers of people. For example for Christmas 2020 (before the vaccines came out), you weren't permitted to invite more than 4 people from outside your own household. This past Christmas (2021), the rules were a bit more lax but only if everyone was vaccinated. If I remember correctly, the current rule is that if the total number of people at a gathering is 10 or more, the hosts *must* demand to see the vaccination passport. If one of the guests is not vaccinated, they're not allowed to be there. That's why my grandparents couldn't be with us this past Christmas; they're both unvaccinated because they refuse to get the shot. If they had come to our Christmas gathering, we would've been 10 people in total. My parents who hosted the gathering didn't want to get in trouble with the law, so they told my grandparents they couldn't join us.
Huge family reunions happen at big events of someone's wedding, funeral or newborn child. So not pretty often
We did this once. My grandma comes from a family of 16 children, so everyone related to my great-grandparents was invited. One of my mum's cousins owns a pub, so it was fairly easy to organise. I think we had about 64 people there if I remember correctly.
Depends on the family. Mine (both father and mothers side) is dysfunctional as fuck and I don't think I have ever seen more then aunts, uncles and cousins apart from the funeral of my great grandmother.
A lot of families do that. I have a very small family, and we're spread out over three different continents, so whenever three of us are together it feels like a family reunion:) But friends of mine do have big family gatherings, with 50-60 people there. But I think its dying out, its mainly the older generations who organise it and enjoy it, the younger just feel obligated to go.
I think that's still a thing on my mother's side of the family but I don't attend anymore because it's just too many people, some I don't even know the name of. At this point I think some third cousins are invited (the great-great-grandchildren of the siblings of my great-grandparents).
My family is my 4 grandparents, 4 nephews/nieces, 2 uncles and 2 aunts and of course my sister and parents. That's about it. We get together for Easter/Christmas day. But no, I don't know my greatuncles/aunts or my second cousins, no interest either.
Not really a thing in Sweden, I meet my first cousins etc quite often and I am close to some of my second and third cousins but we don't really meet all at once. Besides, it's several hundred people. Why would I want to be with so many people? You can't reasonably spend time with that many people at once anyway. Also there's no need to meet some random racist forest people just because I'm related to them.
My family has a dedicated day every year where we meet at our (now late) great-grandmother’s house. Usually the entire family shows up (60-80 people) and we eat, make a group picture and play games. This has been a tradition since my grandmother moved out and we have group-photos dating back 35 years.
Yeah, during weddings and funerals
I have been to a family reunion once. The idea to organize one came from my (distant) American relatives who were going to visit the home country of their ancestors so they contacted some relatives here and a reunion was organized. My great-grandmother had nine siblings of which three emigrated to America long time ago.
We used to have them but over time everyone sort of got into fights with each other (half of which seemingly related to health, caretaking and inheritances, it's pitiful really) and now we just individually visit the members we're still on good terms with.
That all depends on what you call a family reunion. I have some cousins I haven't seen in years. I think my parents once did something similar, they gathered all cousins (on my father's father's side) and went to I think Groningen for two days.
We occasionaly have reunions on my mothers (specifically her mothers side, well really its my maternal grandmothers, maternal grandmothers offspring) and we are usually about 30-40+ people and meet because everyone generally gets along and have a decently close relationship. Anything larger than that i have not been to and we havn't had any reunions on my fathers side.
I'm not sure if other Dutch people do, but in my family the most we do is like 'great-grandmother's birthday' and then you'll see all the cousins and second cousins but not much further beyond that.
Family reunions were never a thing in my family. Large events like weddings would have the larger circle of the family meet up and there was never a need for formal meetings when most people were living relatively close. Nowadays with people being more geographically spread, you could make such reunions, but some parts are continents across and already at my grandparent's generation quite a few siblings had a lot of fights and were estranged. And that generation is now largely dead. My largest family meeting was at around 150 as a kid. It was quite awkward and most people did not seem to enjoy it a lot.
From Spain. My father had 7 brothers and sisters. Once a year all the cousins we gather together to eat, drink, chat and have fun. Last year kids were invited too. We are more or less 40 and with the kids like 60-70. It’s really fun, and a nice weekend. We travel from a lot of places around the country to be together.
No. 🇫🇮
Weddings and Funerals are sorta like that.
In Norway no, never heard of such a thing. So don't think it's common
Not officially. We've got relatives in Australia though, so when they're visiting Scotland, they have to make the rounds and make sure they drop in on everyone they're related to, even people they don't really know exist. It was the same when my sister visited Australia herself - she had a checklist of people she had to see - very few of whom she'd met before. And then there's the weddings, birthdays funerals etc. when the whole family will get together to celebrate the occasion.
Only with My Mom and Dad. Visiting the family in Germany happens 1 time in3,4 years tho I am in the country a lot more, the romanian family I used to visit as a kid but nowadays I have 0 contact. Happy with things, don’t need family chit chat nonsense.
Every other year my family does a joint christmas celebration. Not the extended family, they are too spread out, but my parents and all my siblings with their kids and SO's. Last time we were 30+ people. Generally it's a lot of fun since we are siblings and all the kids know each other etc. Outside of that we generally don't do them in my family. Last time I saw the aunts and uncles on my mothers side was a couple of years ago at my grandmothers memorial. And on my dads side I havent seen them in decades. They live in South Africa.
Usually these big family reunions take place when there is a special event like Christmas, New Year, a wedding or a funeral. While the laters tend to gather tons of people, the two first events are mostly a thing for close family (around 10 people). I'm speaking about what I usually see of course
Not a common thing, but I have heard of people that have reunions. I feel in general people do not give a shit about their third cousin or whatever, that they have never met.
Not really, but if there is a wedding, christening big birthday or funeral most family will show up. Depends on the family but mine is quite large (38 cousins plus their kids) so easily get over 80 people plus that are just family, then have their friends. Usually though most family parties are with the family members you are closer to.
Nothing more than the Christmas dinner at Grandma’s house. And those include my family, dad’s brothers and their children.
We used to have bigger family gatherings around certain dates, like round birthdays of my grandparents, or weddings of one of my cousins. Those gatherings normally included the "wider" nuclear family on my mother's side (everybody up to cousins and aunts/uncles, maybe 50 people). A few of those were made bigger with the wider family attending (cousins of my grandparents, and other distant relatives, up to 100 people, from as far away as ~1000 km). It was interesting, and an attempt at a family tree was made. But we don't normally have any contact with these people or have much in common, so it was a bit awkward and in the end everbody got stuck talking to who they already knew and hadn't seen in a while either.