| A family reunion, is where people who are related in some way (having a common ancestor, most likely) get together.
But for me, a family reunion is an event where I can sit in a corner and read a science fiction novel and the people there will not say "How rude!" but rather "She's just like her daddy." There is a comfort in knowing you have roots among people, even if you don't know them well and they don't know you well. We are descended from the man who the local town of Sherrills Ford is named after, and nearly everyone else in eastern Catawba County, North Carolina, due to cousin marriage.
The Saunders family reunions are usually barbecues held on the land that used to be my great-grandfather's, but is now divided among his descendants, on the shore of Lake Norman in North Carolina. Good Southern cooking, boating, all the other recreational stuff that the retired family members have put in for their grandchildren; something to keep everyone occupied. The only thing remotely unpleasant is keeping track of my all my cousins, as my great-grandparents had eight children, all of whom had children of their own. | 
