A family celebration
I’m all out of blog inspiration this week. This weekend I have to go North for a big family hurrah (note “hurrah” not “hoo-haa”, though perhaps the two are closely related). It’s to celebrate my Mum’s 60th birthday and my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary (but this year is actually their 61st wedding anniversary, we are just celebrating the 60th because they went away last year and we couldn’t - just in case you were doing the maths on that).
It’s been in the planning for a very long time and my younger sister is up there making it a big deal. I said ‘you don’t have to go to so much trouble - it sounds like a wedding reception’ and she said that they are trying to make it like a wedding because none of them have ever had big parties before. So I’ve since shut up and gone along with the extravaganza, especially since I’m down here not doing a whole lot.
My Mum is one of six kids, and they all married and had kids, and some of their kids are now married with kids, so there’s enough family alone to make a big function. I have to give the speech from the children. I’m no fan of public speech-making, but there are times when you just have to rise to the occasion and do it. The problem with this weekend is that the uncle who is giving the speech for my grandparents is the family comedian. I'd say he will have everyone in stitches for ten minutes and then it will be my turn, but there’s no point me even trying ...
People are coming from far and wide and it will be good to see them all. A few years ago now the family got too vast and scattered for gatherings to be a regular thing, so we haven’t all been in the same place for a long time. All this has involved such things as timing flights to line up the airport runs, food lists being emailed around the country, old photos being scanned and sent all over the place (and appearing on facebook, to my chagrin), telephone present consultations, decoration discussions. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.
So if there’s nothing here for a few days, I am just off partying.