You’ll find out very quickly that it will be a challenge when you’re in the planning stages of a family retreat/reunion.  You need to find names, addresses, and e-mail addresses.  Then there’s the actual contacting of people, planning the location for it, and the time of month, year, or what season to hold the retreat in.  It’s no small chore, whether it’s just you and the immediate family --- husband, wife, children, grandparents, aunts, and uncles --- or the large scale reunion where you’re trying to locate a sixth cousin somewhere. Once the planning is done and you’re finally on your way, there is all the activity to look forward to --- the photos, the games, the food (especially the food).  But the bottom line is realizing the true benefit to having a family retreat/reunion.  There’s a lot more than just what is on the surface.  And there are a number of reasons why you should consider having a family retreat/reunion once in a while. Probably the best feature of the family retreat is the fact that it is that one time where everyone can step away from their busy lives and just relax together and reconnect.  It’s a sad fact, but our everyday lives have a way of tearing a family apart.  You’re busy in your job, the wife may or may not have a career, but if she’s a homemaker, that’s multiple jobs all in one.  The kids have their things going on --- school, sports, socializing, etc.  So where is the real family time in all of that? You’re right.  There isn’t any.  And you need that once in a while.  It’s all about reconnecting as a family, and that in itself is the priority and then the benefit to having a family retreat/reunion. Continuing with this avenue of thought, the family retreat/reunion is also a great way to bridge that geographical gap that keeps families apart.  When you expand out from the immediate family to the outer reaches of it --- that part of the family where the aunts and uncles are, the great aunts and great uncles, and some first cousins that you may have been close to growing up --- these are great elements to a smaller family retreat/reunion.  So there is the delineation between the smaller events versus the larger one.  And that is another benefit to the family reunion on a smaller scale --- the fact that it is smaller and more immediate means that it can definitely be more personal. Huge family reunions that happen once every 5 years or so are nice because you have a chance to see how extensive your family is; however, the immediacy of the smaller gathering has the tendency to bring something much more special and that’s the aspect of quality time and only having to focus on a handful of your relatives.  Now consider another benefit of the family retreat/reunion --- healing old wounds and mending the distance between you and a family member that drifted apart.