FAMILY REUNION HELPER IS HAVING A SALE IN THEIR ETSY SHOP!
Until midnight tonight, you can purchase any family reunion theme package using our special ETSY coupon.
Follow the link below to receive $5.00 off any reunion theme package.
At Familyreunionhelper.com we sell reunion theme packages. What’s a theme package you ask? Most of our digital downloads include 45 or more pages of invitations, name tags, water bottle labels, games,activities, templates and printables that compliment the theme you have chosen.
The following is an example of a name tag from our Heritage Reunion.
This cute invitation is from our Circus reunion. Just print it off and then fill in the blanks with your personalized reunion information.
Our Caveman reunion invitation is sure to get the kids excited about attending all the prehistoric fun.
Water bottle labels are a wonderful way to address your reunion theme and if everyone writes their name on the label, bottles don’t get mixed up or lost as easily.
Our theme packages also include pages and pages or games and activities that go along with the theme you’ve chosen. You can spend hours searching the web for your ideas but these have been tried and tested and we know they work. Here’s a page from our Superhero reunion.
Our reunion theme packages include tons of extras like these certificates from our Medieval Reunion and printable signs from our “No Place Like Home”, Oz inspired reunion.
Each of our reunion theme packages includes printable games and puzzles that go along with your theme. Like this Valentine’s game that is part of our “Home for the Holidays” reunion.
Our reunion themes also include food ideas that compliment your theme. Check out this recipe for “Parrot” (tastes a lot like chicken”)- it serves 100.
Serves 100.
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 ounces dehydrated onions
7 pounds 3 ounces catsup
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 pound 8 ounces brown sugar, packed
48 pounds chicken, cut-up
For barbecue sauce: Simmer chicken stock and onions over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add catsup, garlic powder, and brown sugar. Simmer 15-20 minutes, stirring frequently. Set aside.
Rinse chicken in cold water. Drain well. Arrange 25 pieces of chicken on each sheet pan (18 x 26 x 1 inch). Brush 3/4 to 1 quart of barbecue sauce over chicken in each pan. Bake uncovered until tender, checking frequently. Cook in conventional oven at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes.
Many of our themes have printable food tents like our Western Reunion food tent featured here.
We’ve tried to think of everything we could to make your reunion planning easier and less stressful. Check out Family Reunion Helper.com today and choose the reunion theme package that best suites your family. You can be sure that each package is jammed packed of ideas, game, activities and printables to get your creative juices flowing. Click on our logo below and follow the link.
Are you looking for a way to excite family members and stir up interest about your next family reunion? Choosing a reunion theme is a great way to build excitement for upcoming and make it more likely family members will want to attend. 
A reunion invitation that invites you to a “Prehistoric” reunion for Brontosaurs burgers and a dinosaur egg hunt is more interesting than an invitation that invites you to a family reunion at “the park” for hamburgers.
A reunion theme helps to drive your reunion and with a little imagination food, games, activities, invitations and just about every other aspect of the reunion becomes a memorable event.
Themes are inexpensive to implement and can inspire the creative side of many members in your family. Ask for their theme ideas, brainstorm and see what they come up with. Our best family reunion themes have come from brainstorming about themes. When a “Caveman”, Mafia and Oz theme were suggested in one of our brainstorming sessions I was kind of worried about what we would do but those themes are some of our favorites and have left us with some amazing reunion memories. Below are just a few family reunion themes that you may want to consider for your next family event.
All- Sport or Olympic Themed Reunion
Get away from a boring sit around and just visit family reunion and jump into some action-packed fun with an All-sport or Olympic themed family reunion.
Activities- Soccer, volleyball, “whiffle” ball, Whacky miniature golf. Hold a cheerleader camp for the girls in your family and a sports camp for the boys. Go bowling or hold a family 5K. Give a family reunion MVP award. For fun variations of these favorite sports- whiffle ball, soccer, bowling, swimming and volleyball plus lots of great ideas for your sports themed reunion.
Food- Smoothies, “Breakfast of Champions” or “Long Jump” lunch hoagies.
Wear– Favorite team jerseys and t-shirt. Make a family t-shirt fashioned after a sports jersey.
Decorations: Pom, poms, pennants, sports balls, sports posters and plastic tablecloths.
Family History or Family Heritage Reunion
If your family reunion is held near where the family originated, then schedule a trip to the old family homestead, church or cemetery. You can use this as an opportunity to share family memories, or go a step further and recruit the clan to clean up the ancestral cemetery plots or research the family in old church records. Hold your reunion at the family home if available or in the town where one of your ancestors were born, raised, married or buried. You can find more Family History ideas for your family reunion at wwwfamilyreunionhelper.com.
Food – Use an ancestor’s home country as theme for your meals. Use recipes from that county and set tables with a centerpiece of memorabilia and a picture of your ancestor. If your people come from Italy, serve a spaghetti dinner, from Mexico, serve tacos, enchiladas or tamales. Box lunches are a fun idea to share an old-time tradition.
At our Family Heritage reunion, the girls in the family designed and decorated shoe boxes at home. We provided sandwich fixin’s, individual chip packages, fruit snacks and drink boxes along with cookies for dessert. The girls made lunches for two and put them in their box. We gave each box a number and the guys in the family each drew a number out of hat to determine which lunch they got to eat and which girl they ate lunch with. In a few instances, we had more girls than guys and so doubled up.
Activities – Play “classic” games at your reunion such as “3-legged race, gunny sack race, Annie I Over. Create a huge wall chart of your family so everyone can see how they are related. Take “old-time” photos and have everyone dress up. Make a family “time capsule”.
Dress – In the ethnic costume of your ancestors.
Ancestor Coloring Book- Making a heritage-coloring book about one of your ancestors is 
a monumental task but it’s a wonderful way to make family history come alive for the little ones in your family. If you have an artist in the family, then designing a coloring book will be much easier for you. If you don’t have a talented artist in the family a great resource is http://store.doverpublications.com/by- subject-coloring-books.html.
Sun, Sand and Surf Reunion Theme
If your reunion is in the summertime then it’s the perfect time for a Sun, Sand & Surf family reunion theme. Merge your beach reunion ideas with your Hawaiian reunion ideas for double the fun.
Invitations: Consider sending “Message in a Bottle” invitations to encourage family members to attend your family reunion or write out your reunion invitation on a beach ball with a permanent marker.
Activities: Sand candles and castles, sand art, volleyball variations and swimming pool games.
Aquatic Obstacle Course: Use sprinklers, Slip-N-Slides, baby pools, limbo sticks and hula hoops to create an obstacle course for wet and wild reunion fun!
Food: Sub sandwiches, fruit trays, shish kabobs, fruit kabobs, gold fish crackers.
Decorations are easy for a beach themed family reunion. Use beach umbrellas, Beach towels, Beach balls, Paper party lanterns, Paper Palm trees and party lights on a string. travel posters, flowers, straw skirt table. Don’t forget to use pink flamingos in your decorating and be sure to include music from the Beach Boys to round out your reunion theme.
Wedding Anniversary or Significant Birthday Family Reunion Theme
Planning a family reunion around an important wedding anniversary or milestone birthday makes for an easy but memorable family reunion.
Invitation – Put two photos of the honored couple on the invitation: their original wedding photo and a current photo.
Food – Finger foods and a “wedding” cake.
Activities- “When You Were My Age” A Celebration of Life’s Memorable Moments. This is such a fun program, fashioned after a Bill Cosby Show episode and was called, “When Mom Was my Age.” We have done variations of the program for 70th and 80th birthdays and 50th wedding anniversaries. Each time we do “When You Were My Age” everyone is a good sport and excited to be a part of the celebration. Everyone has a part on the program and an opportunity to highlight world events and significant family happenings throughout the life of your loved one. Download the “When You Were My Age” from Family Reunion Helper or write a “This Is Your Life” program for your reunion celebration.
Decorations –Photos and other various memorabilia of the couple’s life together.
Begin your reunion with a circus parade and invite everyone to dress in fun costumes and march around your reunion site.
Food –Circus food- corn dogs, cotton candy and popcorn.
Activities – As your family arrives, have then guess how many circus animal cookies or peanuts are in a jar. The person who guesses closest to the actual number wins the jar full of treats. Have a carnival. Assign 6- 10 family members a carnival booth. Children earn prizes at each booth. Face painting, fishing booth, fortune teller, Plinko, Dart Throw etc. Consider renting a bounce house for the little ones in your family. For more ideas check out the family reunion “circus” theme at www.familyreunionhelpercom/
Decorations – Balloons, tents and circus animal cutouts.
Design an obstacle course depicting famous scenes from the movie. Run through a tissue paper poppy field, jump over bale of straw etc. Make bottle tornados and make a yellow brick road out of scrap lumber. Plan an activity that represents each Oz character such as paper plate lions, red glitter shoes and
Decorations- Make flying monkeys from black poster board and hang around your reunion location. Use rainbow colored tablecloths (one color per table).
Food- “Ding Dong” the witch is dead Ding Dong cakes, rainbow lollypops, Lions, Tigers and Bears animal crackers and melted witch treats.
– Make ponies from dollar store pool noodles and have a pool noodle rodeo. Shoot at targets with rubber band guns or pvc pipe bow and arrows. Make a family totem pole or try some line dance.
Food- Call the food you serve” vittles”. Have a chili cook off., have a Texas Straw Hat food bar or serve barbeque, spareribs or grilled hamburgers. Use tin pie plates, mason jars with handles and lots of bandanas.
Decorations- Put up a large ranch sign at the party entrance. Print off some wanted posters. To make it more fun, get hold of some photos of the guests and put them on the posters. Place some paper or real horseshoes on the path leading to the party entrance. Create a teepee out of a large sheet and some wooden dowels. Create a large cactus out of a cardboard box or even buy some inflatable ones. Cover the party food table in a red and white checkered cloth and hang up a sign saying “SALOON”.
I Love Beads! I really do. I use them for so many activities at family reunions.
The best thing I ever did with beads was to make a bead reward box for our family reunion in Lake Powell. Instructions and printables for the bead box are included in our Beach family reunion theme package. You can find it by clicking here- Beach Reunion
More recently, I came across this fun, simple and inexpensive bead activity that would be perfect for your western themed family reunion.
To represent the Native American culture, make beaded arrowhead necklaces. You can limit the number of beads that can be put on each necklace or let them go wild. Pony beads are cheap and easy to come by at any craft store.
I thought the arrowheads would be hard to find or too expensive but felt pretty lucky when found a set of 50 Indian agate replica arrowheads at Amazon for under $10.00. Just click on the link below to purchase.
Arrowhead necklaces would also be a fun activity on Thanksgiving. Set up a table away from more traditional Thanksgiving activities and let your guests build their own creation.
Another fun bead activity for your reunion is bead geckos. Read our blog on Family Reunion Helper.com for detailed instructions. Bead Gecko Blog
Family Reunion Helper proudly announces the completion of their latest family reunion theme- Superhero!
Now you can bring all the action-packed adventure and excitement of your favorite superheroes to your family reunion!
A superhero reunion will appeal to family members of all ages. Superheroes have unique skills, wear awesome costumes and save the world on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis.
A superhero family reunion lends itself to action-packed games, superhero training and fun activities.
This reunion theme package includes a fun printable reunion invitation, secret super power cards, water bottle labels, superhero training cards, “what’s my super power?” activity, Kapow!, Boom! and Zap! signs and fun printables for napkin rings and table decorations.
Our superhero reunion is jam packed with more than 35 pages of ideas for many of your favorite superheroes: Batman, Spider-man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Iron-man, Flash, Hawk-eye and even Aqua-man.
With the Superhero reunion theme your family will want to save helpless citizens, fight the forces of darkness and defeat the evil villains. Plan a superhero reunion and let your families’ powers shine. Whether they’re saving the planet or saving your family, a superhero family reunion or party will be a memorable reunion for anyone who has ever yearned to make right what’s wrong in the world.
You can find the superhero reunion theme at Family Reunion Helper.com and by clicking on the link below.
At our western themed family reunion we created our own pool noodle ponies. Everyone, no matter what their age, made a pony until we had a whole herd of them. DIY pool noodle ponies are a great activity for a multi day reunion. We had the whole first day to create our ponies and used them for fun activities on the second day.
For each pony you need one swimming noodle the skinnier ones work best and you can usually find them for $1.00 at dollar stores.
twine or yarn
felt (9 x 12 sheets work well)
large wiggly eyes
low temp glue gun and glue
scissors
Permanent markers
Decorations
For your ponies head, bend the end of your noodle over and use twine or yarn and tie tightly to hold in place. This will be the ponies bridle. Attach a longer piece of rope to make the reins. You may want to braid this part of the bridle or add bows etc.
For the mane of the pony make a slit, about 1/2-1 inch deep, into the pool noodle with a box cutter, pocket knife or one side of a pair of scissors. Cut felt so it is fringed on both edges then stuff the felt (center first) into the slit.
The felt will stay put without gluing.
Cut another strip of felt with points on both ends to make the ears. Put the ears under the bend of the head and pull upward.
Encourage pony creators to be creative. Provide permanent markers, stickers and jewels and see what they create. We have found that the more time you give them the more creative the ponies got. We even got a long necked giraffe (made from two pool noodles).
Finally, put together a rodeo or horse show for your horses to compete in. Give prizes for
Helpful hint- If you have a large crowd making ponies, write names on your trusty steeds. Although each is unique they may still be difficult to pick out of the crowd.
For more fun ideas for your western themed family reunion or party check out familyreunionhelper.com
