Contributed by Cindi Pearce, Catalogs.com Top 10 Guru

It’s summertime and that’s when people tend to get together for family reunions.

Here are the top 10 things you need to take to your family reunion:

10. Take yourself

Don’t make excuses. Go to the reunion. Reuniting with long lost relatives is exciting and fun and you will get a kick out of reminiscing. You may want to avoid Uncle Albert, who always was obnoxious, but you can manage that.

9. Memories

Take your memories and share them. Only you and your siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles and parents and grandparents have the same collective memories especially if you spent a lot of time together when you were all younger. Ask the elderly people about their youth and write it down. Create a journal of “memories.” Once the elderly relatives are gone you will no longer have access to their memories, which are so valuable and should be recorded and cherished.

8. Crest

Find out if there is a family crest or have one designed and take it to the family reunion. Hang it up in a prominent place. You can do this every year, making it a part of the annual family reunion ritual.

7. Genealogical research

If you have some of great-great grandma’s clothing or grandpa’s journals or great-great-Aunt Tilda’s photos, take them and share them with the rest of the family. Some people don’t realize how interesting genealogy is until they are exposed to it. You can find out volumes about your predecessors and you may even discover that you look like someone from the past. Other questions may be answered such as why you have red hair or why your daughter’s hair is so curly or where your brother got his musical abilities. It’s all in the family, somewhere.

If there is a genealogist in the family (maybe it’s you) bring all the information that you have collected on the family and put it on display. There will be a lot of family members who are clueless, until you inform them, that you’re of Mongolian descent or originally came from Alps. Anything is possible.

6. Video camera

Your video camera is a great way to capture the actual event. If you do it every year you will have chronological videos that show the babies growing up and the adults growing old (much to their dismay). Encourage those being taped to talk about the family. Being funny is not only okay but will make the video even more enjoyable. There is no censorship. Tell them to let it rip. Forty years from now the family memories will get a kick out of seeing grandma being ornery.

5. Home movies

If you have 8 mm movies that were taken years ago, have them transferred to DVDs and bring them to the reunion. Tell everyone to gather around the TV and watch movies that were made of them 50 years ago. This will get the group laughing for sure. Look at your knock knees! Did you really wear your hair that way in high school? Look, dad has hair!

4. Family t-shirts

Have family reunion t-shirts made in advance with your family name and crest and distribute them. Include the year of the reunion. People will love this.

3. Food

Take food and drink and lots of it. It can’t be a party without something to fill the belly and whet the whistle. Plan ahead and buy snack foods in bulk so that kids – and hungry adults – can load up on candy, granola bars, and trail mix.

2. Family tree

Draw a family tree on a bed sheet. Actually draw a tree with branches and then pin the names of the family members on the appropriate branches. Hang the family tree on a wall or from a clothesline so that everyone at the reunion can view it. Each year make the appropriate additions (births) and note on the family tree when someone has passed away.

1. Camera

Your camera. Take pictures at each reunion and then faithfully put them into a photo album carefully labeling them including names, ages, date, location of the reunion. Take the photo album back to the reunion next year and share it. People will get a kick out of it. Encourage others to do likewise and you will have a veritable photo collection of every family reunion.