Large Families and Holiday Get Togethers
 

Help! My family is getting larger and larger by the year and none of us have a large enough home to accomodate everyone comfortably. What do you all do that have large families? Do you rent a hall, do you go to a restaurant, do you go to a hotel......what do you do so you can all be together on the holidays?

HONESTLY DEAR, my family gives up the "comfort" to be with the ones we :love: ~ just not sure why it always has to be at MY house ;)

Christmas Eve is always at my house ~ and crowded ~ but we survive. The crowd has been close to 50 at times. Thanksgiving is always at my house too...just not always on Thanksgiving Day...I raised my two kids, step-daughter and nephew, they all have another parent and granparents so we adjust our schedule best we can. The last 3 years we have had over 30 here for Thanksgiving with my ex-wife and family, friends of the kids and family...this year my brother took a few neices of ours, my daughter and her fiance are in Yosemite, and my son's buddies had to head back home (after being here all last week for his wedding)...so we had only 6..my wife and I, son and daughter in law and step-daughter and nephew...nice but quiet.

We just cram together around here! It is nice to be "all together" but also nice to be smaller and more intimate and spending time in conversation with each other on how they are "actually doing".

Prayers you work it out best for you and yours.

I know thanksgiving is over...but we had the same problem with our family...We have between 50 - 75 that get together monthly and over 100 at the big holidays! So we ended up building a building on 2 different locations (family property) so that we could accomodate our whole family! We love it and use them for so many things! I hope it all worked out for you! God Bless!

We have a large family and it's not unusual to have 35-40 together for holidays or just because.... we live in the south where it's generally warm so a lot of times we end up out in the yard... we did that Thursday at my brother's... built a fire and all sat around talking etc... we never try to have a formal sit down dinner- it's make a plate and sit where you can! Lots of fun!

Reba

I know this is a little late, but I also have a large family, 40-75 depending on the holiday! We gave up on fitting in someone's house years ago. We "rent" a church to fit all of us. It's free. Then we have chairs and tables, and a rec hall to play basketball or volleyball. It works well for us! Thanksgiving this year was a blast! We had 54 people come and had a great day!!

We USED to have large family get togethers. ::sigh:: But the family is now all spread out all over the country. :( But we just crammed everyone into grandma's small house. Many times people showed up at different times throughout the day. But there was a time someone didn't believe we had that many people under one roof and we had to show him two pictures to proove it...two because we couldn't fit everyone into one. LOL We had 3 rows. People on the floor, those on the couch, and those sitting on the back of the couch, and some standing at both sides of the room. We had to get the pic in two angels. We just sat people wherever we could to eat. If you have stairs, they make great seats. ;) Folding chairs around the livingroom, card tables, anything works.

I come from a large family as well and get togethers can number anywhere from 30-80 people. Depending on where we are and the weather we do a number of things:

1) Eat outside
2) Don't expect everyone to sit at the same table or even in the same room
3) Build an outdoor enclosure of some sort

It is normal for our family get togethers to be in fairly small homes but we never feel crowded. It isn't unusual for people to eat standing up while chatting or sitting down in the living room, dining room and/or outside.

For other get togethers, we also rent out parks or portion of parks.

My dad had eight brothers and sisters. When my grandparents were living, we had huge gatherings at Christmas and Easter. It was always potluck spread out on a huge table. People made plates and went to the living room, outside on the porch, on the floor, where ever a place could be found. There were three couches in the living room, though.