Family get-togethers (spouse, father, siblings, member)

[SwedishViking]

How often do you do this?
It seems to me when reading a lot of threads that people do this quite often. But it also seems it's more of a "hassle coz we kinda have to do it" thing for a lot of people. Incompatibilities between inlaws etc.

In my family this is pretty much what it looks like...
On moms side I remember some Christmas back in the early 1990's when grandma, mom and my uncles and cousins met for Christmas dinner.
Other than that there have been the burials of grandpa and grandma at which the same people came, plus siblings to the deceased.
But that's pretty much it, in spite of my mom having 3 brothers, around 60-70 cousins etc.

On dads side I think there have never been much of a family size to do this, as neither grandma nor grandpa had any siblings, and my aunt doesn't have kids, so the entire family was basically there as soon as dad visited his mom,
There is of course my sister and brother, but I haven't seen my brother for well more than two thirds of my life, and I see my sister on average once every 3 years.

Am I missing out on something or is it pretty much a drag people do for the sake of tradition?

[augiedogie]

I wished I lived closer to family. Its not hard to enjoy family; for awhile. The problems come when they come and stay. After a few days, you get sick of them, and you just want to get back to life as usual, in your own house, own bed, you can eat what you want when you want and you don't have to be polite and considerate and be "On" all the time. You can take a nap, etc etc.

[Percentage]

We dont get together enough as my family is scattered across the country. May be once a year for a week or two stretch. The only thing that forces us to meet more than one time is the death of a relative....its weird though because even though we dont get a chance to see each other very often...whenever we meet, its always a blast....the usual complaint is that time spent together is short..oh well....love the fam!!!

[jodipper]

In my opinion the best times are when the family is only 3 generations, from grandparents to grandchildren. We had great holidays then. When the cousins marry(not each other), people die, when cousins have children, marriage with steps, it changes. We went from every Sunday at Grandparents and 3 or 4 Christmas get togethers at aunts or uncles to only seeing the enlarged family at weddings and funerals. Eventually not even then. When the family grows, it loses closeness.

[crisan]

I don't drag myself for the sake of tradition. I go because I want to. The reason why is a bit preachy so I will leave it out.

[Nite Ryder]

I went to a family reunion this summer and really enjoyed myself. I'm looking forward to going again next year. My mother used to be the instigator of our reunions, but she passed away in the early 90's, so I guess my sister is going to take over and do it. We had cousins show up that I haven't seen in years. I feel sorry for people who don't have family they can visit with, you miss out on a lot.

[TabulaRasa]

We are scattered across the country, as is the reality of the job market for many right now. Subsequently, we don't get to get together with our families nearly as often as we'd like.

We make a point each year to split the holiday season between my family and my SO's family. We do Thanksgiving with one (this year, his mom and stepdad came the thousand miles to us, and we hosted). We then do Christmas with the other side (this year, we will go about 500 miles to my family, and all my siblings and their spouses and partners will do the same, come in from their respective homes. We're on a rotation where we are all with my parents on the same year.

Other than that, we might see family one other time during the year. But we're pretty much only guaranteed family face time once per year per side, during the holidays.

This is a contrast to my first decade out of college, where I worked and lived in my hometown, about six miles from my parents' house, and spoke to them daily and saw them multiple times a week.

We don't get together out of obligation, we get together because we genuinely enjoy one another's company. My siblings are my best friends, and my SO's siblings are his best friends. My parents are the people to whom I'm emotionally closest to on earth, and there's no sense of "I'm forcing myself to go and tolerate them," whatsoever. We look forward to face time with the fam all year long.

[BJW50]

Six times a year barring a wedding or funeral, Thanksgiving, Xmas, Easter, Memorial Day, Father's Day and Fourth of July. My sister and oldest are teachers who live out of state. They're at the mercy of their district's schedule and its easier to come up on a long weekend. My other children and four of my grandchildren live locally.

[malamute]

I've always enjoyed the family get-togethers, while growing up and with both sides of the family and also now.

[PurePugx3]

Most of my mom's family live in another country and I've never met the majority of my cousins because of this. My mom lives several states away and I haven't seen her in a year or more. My dad passed away recently and I've never been overly close to his family; most of them don't live that far away but the relationship is somewhat awkward. My dad was sort of the black sheep of the family and I tend to be treated by them as an extension of such. They also tend to view any kind of get-together as a time to get loaded and I'm/we're not into that much. I see my in-laws a couple times a year but not necessarily on holidays.

DH and me are fine spending the holidays with our grown children if they are able to come home (two in college, one in the military) or even just one another as we did earlier this week for Thanksgiving.

We don't get hung up on the holiday thing and sticking with the same plan year after year. Some years we spend more time with extended family, other years less....no grand plan to it.