UNITED STATES—Family. Sometimes you love them, sometimes you hate them. I know hate is a strong word to use, but family can get under your skin at times in ways that a complete stranger can never do. Recently, my family had its annual family picnic something that we started a few years back. We used to have a large family reunion each year where we would travel to a new city and state and enjoy one another’s company.
While the picnic is a one-day event, in recent years it has indeed grown. There are more and more people who have showed up to the picnic each year and I actually love it. Why? I’m meeting members of my family that I didn’t even know were family members. I sometimes laugh about the fact that my grandparents had so many kids because they had a lot of kids who had kids. So, the big family element comes full circle.
These are family members that I honestly only see once a year, so when I get the opportunity to see them it is indeed fantastic. We get to chat about our lives, while reminiscing about how things used to be when we were growing up. Realizing that many of us now have families and responsibilities we didn’t have 20 years ago. That is life; you live and you grow up. At the same time, what bonds family more than food.
We had food alright, but when you’re planning a gathering for family that includes over 100 people, you have a lot of food to prepare and that can cause some serious chaos. People were preparing food, dishes were tasty, things were late, things were not as tasty, and gosh I prayed we didn’t have any leftovers.
That was my biggest concern because the past two years, we have so much leftover, there were things we had to unfortunately throw out. Not in 2025, seems people were hungry, and everyone was taking a plate home and hopefully savoring the good cooking that was done. I’ll be honest, a few things weren’t as tasty as I had hoped, but that is another conversation.
While enjoying each other’s company, the kids had fun on the playground, slides and swings at the park, while the adults chatted and talked about memories from the past that delivered so many laughs. Not to mention there was a bit of old-school music, plenty of refreshments and dodging a bevy of bees. Ugh, what the heck with all these bees in the fall versus during the summer months? They were literally everywhere, and we were all battling dodging bees, while trying to eat our food.
I will admit I hated the cleanup element of having to destroy all of the aluminum pans and emptying trash. It is a lot more work than we expected, as we start to consider forming new and additional committee members. The way I see it, the more the better. You want to help, come join the fray. I am indeed hoping for our next outing we have a destination outside of our hometown. Why? It gives us something different to enjoy, a new place, new people, new opportunities, but at the end of the day it’s all about family people.
