Inside: Here are 10 family reunion ideas for celebrating your “family.” Lots of games, arts & crafts, cooking & baking in the kitchen, and more!

10 Family Reunion Ideas

Family reunions are a great way to bring family members together for fun, games, and comradery. They’re worth the meticulous planning, preparation, and execution because lifetime memories are created as a result.

Here are 10 family reunion ideas—indoor and outdoor games, arts & crafts, fun in the kitchen, and more! All these activities have been tried and tested by our family at various reunions and have been voted by us as the “best of the best” family reunion ideas!

Family reunions usually fall into 3 categories:

• Driving to a reunion
• Flying to a reunion
• Using your home as a base for a family reunion

I have taken into consideration these categories when sharing the following ideas. Obviously, if you are driving to a reunion or using your home as a base—it’s easier to take supplies you’ll need for these activities. However, if you’re flying—you can still do most of these activities. You’d be surprised how many supplies you can fit into a suitcase! I’ve fit lots of supplies into my suitcase when flying to a family reunion or I purchase supplies at local stores once I arrive at the destination.

You be the judge of what will work best for your family. And don’t forget to have at least ONE ancestor activity!

Let the fun begin!

#1 Pass the Funny Face

This is a great family reunion idea! It doesn’t take a lot of planning; supplies are minimal and it’s easy to pack.

Everyone gets a sheet of poster paper (11×14 Dollar Store) and a black Sharpie pen—that’s it! Gather around a large table and start making your funny face—and everyone else’s!

Directions

• Everyone puts their name on the back of the paper
• One person calls out the directions and directs everyone to pass their paper to the next person when it’s time.
• First, everyone draws a head on their paper—make it big. Then pass your paper to the person on your right.
• Second, everyone draws eyes, eyelashes, eyebrows, etc. Then pass the drawing to the person on your right
• Next, everyone draws a nose—be as creative as possible. Pass to the right
• Continue passing the funny faces and adding different facial parts such as mouth, chin, ears, hair, neck, etc. If you need more parts add a nose ring, tattoo, barrette, hair ribbon, jewelry, earrings, etc.

After all the pictures are finished, pass them back to the original person and have a fun time laughing at how everyone helped to create a bunch of funny faces!

More details here 

#2 Family Puzzles

Our family loves puzzles. And because this is the 21^st century—you can have personalized puzzles made of each family. They cost around $29 for a 16×20 puzzle. You send them a picture of your family and they send you back a 99-piece puzzle.

Kids, grandkids, and adults will all have a blast putting together these personalized puzzles with their families.

They are easy to pack and bring to a reunion and everyone will want to rinse and repeat this activity!

Click here to order. And the quality of these puzzles is outstanding! You will love them!

#3 A Bundle of Easy Family Reunion Ideas: Tug-of-War, Potato Bag Races, Flying Kites & Blowing Bubbles

This bundle of family reunion ideas is easy, requires little planning or supplies, and can be used as filler activities during your reunion. We’ve done them all!

Tug-of-War

All you need is a strong rope. Divide everyone into 2 teams and when someone says “go” each team tugs on the rope. The winning team is the team that knocks the other team to the ground.

Potato Sack Races

For this game, you can use large black garbage bags or purchase bags from Amazon. Each person puts their legs into the bag and when someone says, “Go” everyone jumps, hops, or runs to the finish line!

Go Fly a Kite

Easy-peasy and you can purchase $2 kites at Walmart. I’ve used ones that cost $14/piece and they don’t work as well—go cheap and have the same kind of fun!

Make it competitive and see which team can keep their kite up in the air the longest.

Blowing Bubbles

It doesn’t get any easier than blowing bubbles! If you need to unwind and rest—give everyone a bottle of bubbles and start blowing bubbles. For some reason, this activity never loses its charm!

#4 Balloon Stampede

Here’s a get-up-and-move game!

Blow up balloons—one for each person. Attach a ribbon or string to each balloon and then tie the string and balloon around each person’s ankle.

Divide into teams—stamp out the other team’s balloons with your feet. A great way to get rid of extra energy!

#5 Cupcake Wars

This family reunion idea is a BIG favorite! Why? Because any activity that includes food is always a blast!

Supplies

• 2 cake mixes–you need 24 cupcakes per team
• Frosting–enough for 12 bags
• Frosting bags
• Food coloring–makeup 12 different colors
• 11×14 or 16×20″ white cardboard (one for each team)

Directions 

• Using cake mixes, make up at least 4 dozen cupcakes. We had 2 teams—girls against boys and each team had 24 cupcakes to work with. You can divide your teams and cupcakes any way you want.
• Make lots of frosting. We made about 12 different colors and put the frosting into frosting bags with different cake tips.
• Give each team an 11×14″ or 16×20″ white piece of cardboard. They need a base to put their cupcake creations on.

Give each team 30 minutes to make something fantastic and give out prizes. Suggestions for prizes:

• Most creative
• Funniest/Goofiest
• Best use of materials
• Most professional looking
• Best edible creation, etc.

#6 Dinner in a Bag or a Box

Family reunions are fun but they’re also exhausting.

Make it easy and have each family take a turn making dinner one night for everyone.

However, one night watch home movies and make “dinners in a colorful bag or a box.” Sandwiches, chips, drinks, fruit, veggies, popcorn, and dessert are just a few ideas.

Then gather around the TV and have some laughs and memories as you relive old family movies!

For more details see #7 below.

#7 Creating Memories: Watching Home Movies

To go with your “dinner in a bag”—here’s a fun opportunity for everyone to watch family movies.

Have you taken lots of videos of your family’s various activities? If so—bring them a long and spend an evening reliving the past.

To make life easy, give this assignment to one family member—have everyone send their videos to this person; they edit everything and bring the movie and all the hook-ups to the reunion.

#8 Making Puzzles from Scratch—a Creative Family Reunion Idea

Looking for a fun family reunion idea to do in the evening as everyone is winding down before bedtime? Try making these fun homemade puzzles.

Supplies

• Blank puzzles
• Colored markers
• Imagination

Directions

• Give everyone a blank white puzzle and markers and let them create a fun puzzle.
• Tell everyone that the entire puzzle needs to have color on it.

After the puzzles are done, break them up and put each puzzle in an envelope. Everyone gets a puzzle to put together and—prizes for those completing their puzzle!

Click here for more directions

#9 Family Reunion Ideas: Camping in a Tent

There is something magical about kids camping out in a tent in the great outdoors! This doesn’t have to be a destination reunion—kids are happy even if they’re camping out in the backyard during the reunion!

If your home is the base for your family reunion—consider having at least one night where the kids/grandkids camp out in the backyard in a tent.

We’ve done this before and it was a blast for the grandkids (not necessarily for the adults)!

Pitch the tent, grab some sleeping bags, pillows, and flashlights, and finish off the evening telling spooky stories in the dark and eating s’mores.

Don’t expect to get a lot of sleep—too much excitement!

#10 Rainbows & Ancestors

It’s always fun to add a family reunion activity that reminds everyone of their ancestors.

This is very easy and won’t take up much space in your suitcase if you’re having a destination reunion.

Directions

• Download and copy off several sets of rainbows and shapes on cardstock paper, cut out, and laminate
• Next, you need pictures of your ancestors—try and get pictures from their childhood or teenage years. Print out, cut out, and glue them onto the different shapes you downloaded
• Give two sets of rainbows to each child and 6-7 ancestors/shapes to create something fun and interesting.

Anything goes! This is just a fun wind-me-down exercise after you’ve been busy celebrating with the family all day long.

Do you want more family reunion ideas? Check out this post for 10 more amazingly fun ideas! Here are 10 Fun Family Reunion Activities for the Best Reunion Ever!

Check out these blogs for other ancestor activities that are fun to play at family reunions:

A Fun Ancestor Scavenger Hunt Game to Excite Kids About Their Past

6 Amazing Outdoor Games from History Played by Your Ancestors

What fun activities do YOU do at your family reunions? Tell us all the gritty details in the comment section below