Games and contests for your family reunion

Family reunions are a time of nostalgia and reminiscing. Relatives meet up after not having seen each other for a long while, and children go from young toddlers to teenagers in what seems like the span of a few years. At reunions, relatives get to play catch up while rehashing past memories. Food is brought in by the truckload and chairs are piled up in high stacks awaiting the arrival of the entire clan. While a majority of the time will be spent mingling, you will also need to set up some games or contests to keep the family (especially the little ones) entertained. Here are some game ideas for your upcoming family reunion.

* Baby Photos: A fun game often played at baby showers also works quite well at family reunions. Although this game requires a little bit of preparation before the actual reunion, it will be well worth it. On the invitations, ask that each relative send in a copy of one of their baby photos or bring a baby photo to the actual reunion. Once all the guests have arrived and submitted their photos, pin them onto the left side of a thick poster board tri-fold, maintaining a master key of which baby photo belongs to which person. At the reunion, take instant photographs of each of the relatives (limit it to those guests who have also brought in a baby photo) and pin them onto the right side of the poster board. The baby photos on the left should be numbered while the photos on the right side should be given distinct letters. Give each game participant a list of numbers and have them put the matching letter in the space next to it. Whoever guesses the most right, wins.

* Truths and Lies: It is unfortunate that many relatives know very little about their family members. To help the entire family learn some interesting facts about their relatives, send one family member at a time to the front of the group and have them say three statements out loud to the entire family. Two of the statements should be complete lies while the last one should be a truth. It is up to the family to determine which statements are false and which one is true. Give everybody a sheet of paper to cast their votes. Whoever gets the most correct answers after all family members have gone to the front to tell their truth and lies, wins a prize.

* Family Reunion Scavenger Hunt: This is a great game that will not only form camaraderie amongst team members, but it will also help family members learn something new about their relatives. Assign every person into a team. Teams can be formed by lumping together all family members who were born in the same month or putting people in teams based on the first letter of their first names. Once the teams are formed, give the family a list of items, along with the points granted for each found item, to be scavenged for. You may want to limit the scavenger hunt to the area of the reunion, or you can let it be a citywide scavenger hunt (especially if all family members are familiar with the city). In addition to the many items that can be found, have a few of the items be questions centered around the family’s history. For example, you can have questions like, “What is the name of Grandma’s great-grandmother?” or “How many aunts attended Northwestern University?” Give the teams an allotted time to get as much of the scavenger hunt items as possible. The team that has the most points wins.