Share with Aunt Bessie’s why family gatherings are the best - chance to win £300 NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

We all know family gatherings can sometimes be a bit stressful but that in the main they are a great way to catch up with loved ones. The team at Aunt Bessie’s would love to hear how you make your family get togethers work for everyone - from the youngest member to the oldest. What role does food play in your gatherings - who does the prep (and who washes up)? What about location, do you like to visit your MILs or do you like hosting yourselves? How often do you get a family gathering on the go - once a year at Christmas or every week?

What’s the best thing which has happened in your family gathering and what memories do you have of gatherings when you were a child? Do you have any traditions you have stuck with or new habits you have come to enjoy?

Aunt Bessie’s say “a proper family gathering is about more than just food – it’s the shared experiences and the bringing together of loved ones that turn a simple meal into something truly special. So we’d love to hear your stories and traditions!”

Add your story for great family gatherings below and you will be entered into a prize draw where one person will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

Thanks and good luck

MNHQ
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food that won't spoil when someone is inevitably late

The best meal gathering we ever had was when we had family visiting from the usa and everyone wanted to be together on christmas day so we had to use a table tennis table as our dinner table and sit everyone around it, the table was bursting with food and it was fabulous. Even though this was about 25 years ago it was still the best meal I've ever experienced

With few family living locally, my family gatherings tend to be small and only happen on increasingly rare occasions. In the past it would be my parents who were the hosts and we would all congregate at theirs, but now they are no longer with us, it's up to the rest of us to ensure that we still get together on special occasions.

After a few quiet Christmases .... this year I have seven coming for Christmas Day and I am intending to push the boat out and try and come close to those wonderful family Christmases back when my parents were still alive.

I do a lot of preparation on Christmas Eve as I like to be very organised and ready, and don't want to be faffing around on Christmas Day morning, as a tradition of ours has always been to go for a long walk to help work up an appetite for all the food to follow.

I'm already planning menus and what I am going to do and when. Although it is lovely when people offer to help, I honestly do prefer to do everything myself. I just find it works for me and I'm more than happy to do it, so that my guests can relax and enjoy themselves. However, if someone offers to help with the clearing away after, I won't say no!

Christmas dinner will be a traditional affair this year - but it will include a big bowl of Aunt Bessie's Yorkshires on the table as my kids won't eat a roast dinner without them haha! There also won't be any Christmas pudding as none of us are fans, and it will likely be a home made cheesecake or Pavlova - something fairly light - I've yet to finally decide.

When the food is eaten, and everything cleared away, I will retire to the armchair with a large sherry and a snooze .... and no doubt there will be a game of charades at some point in the proceedings!

Every other Sunday everyone plies around to my mums, everyone brings something and everyone helps with cleaning up. It’s like Christmas Day all the time!

I don't have a massive family. It's me, DH, 2 DC, PIL and DM. PIL live the other side of the country, so it's nice when they come down to visit. I usually plan a few meals and we cook at ours or their place if they manage to get a rental. They usually come down over a weekend so a roast is an absolute must (with a million Yorkies obviously)!

It happens about three times a year, shame it can't be more often but we all work FT. Still, guess it makes it all the more special when they do come.

Every other year me and my 3 siblings return to our parents for Christmas. We all stay for about 4 days. Now we have partners and children there is 14 of us in a three bedroomed house. It's a squash but we all love it. Mum and dad do all the planning and we all help out. It's great!

My parents visited for the first time from the US just this summer. It was the first time my dad had seen the kids in 7 years, and his first time meeting my fil who lost his speech due to a stroke, but that didn't stop them from bonding. I cooked a huge roast dinner with all the trimmings. Hubs helped, and did the washing up. It was so funny to see their reaction to Yorkshire puddings (thanks to Aunt Bessie) they thought they were going to be sweet! it was such a lovely memory and the food was the glue that held us all together.

With our eldest two away working and at uni, plus they both spend time with their partners now, it's quite rare that we all manage to get together for a family meal. We always sit together for Sunday lunch, whoever is there and this might be 3 of us or 8 of us, depending on who is there!

At Christmas we always do a big buffet night for extended family as well and keep everything casual - that way we all stay calm and avoid conflict!

We usually go to MIL's as she seems to like doing the Sunday roast thing but if I'm doing it I try to be as organised as possible and cut down the stress.

We love a good Sunday roast with family and friends, but using lots of sneaky cheats means I spend more time chatting and less time sweating

we dust of the chairs from the shed, extend the dining room table, take it in turns with the out-laws, and try our best to hide the Christmas presents for the little darlings until the big man has paid his visit. We open the fizz, watch the queens speech and fill our faces with turkey and all the trimmings

We have Sunday roast around my our parents, all 18 of us every Sunday. We on congregate around our parents for a good catch up on the week and play games with the children.

I love hosting but prefer a buffet rather than having to cook a big meal. I would find that quite stressful as have some fussy critics in the family! A buffet allows me to prepare lots in advance. Everyone can help themselves and just relax.

Because I can cook things with 2 hands as someone takes the baby!
I can cook more of a variety as there are more people & so less waste if the immediate family don't like it.
And the toddler is more likely to try new things in front of people she wants to impress (not me or her father!)

I am fortunate to be going to visit cousins this Christmas and we're planning on relaxing with good food and doing something crafty with the kids, like making decorations. For me, food is hugely important but I do end up doing most of it so I try not make life too difficult for myself and its always better with some good drinks on hand .

family gatherings are the best because there is no one who you can laugh and cry with like your own family!

I live 180 miles away from my 'family' now so we only get together around a table a few times a year - and I absolutely love it when it we do! To see my kids sitting at the table with aunties & uncles, cousins and most importantly grandparents is the best thing ever - no matter whether we are eating takeaway or home cooked. The banter that they experience between us all really brings home to them that although we live apart we really do all belong together as one big family. Precious & priceless!!

We gend only to have big family gatherings around christmas and birthdays and i findthe best way to aboid stress is to be prepared. Know what times everything needs to be cooked. Delegate so you dont spend the whole time catering and make sure theres plenty of sweet treats and booze to go around.

Our family is in Greece and we hold our family gathering each summer. My 10 year old son always looks forward to the family gatherings. He loves seeing his family how proud they are of all his achievements, how he has grown up. Mostly, he loves being people who show their love for him & I.

Singing carols after xmas dinner, with my sister playing the piano and my 96 year old granny joining in. It's all a bit Waltons!

my mum always used to make an afternoon tea buffet with lots of sandwiches, crisps and cakes. I used to love it! x

Every year we try to bring all three generations of the a family together for an great feast

Family gatherings are so much fun as my kids acquire more cousins - lots of people to cause chaos with! It also means the focus has shifted to my generation in terms of organising and determining what happens when as it has to fit round the kids, so we're no longer jumping to what our parents want.

I love family get togethers, random for-no-reason-ones and big Christmasses too! When I was younger we had every get together at my Nana's, she's just the best cook, she made everything by hand and everything was delicious each and every time we celebrated anything, comforted each other in hard times or even just had tea together. Now she's in her 70s we get together at my house, I use many of her recipes and do my best to do her proud - although I'll never master her mince pies! Nana still sits at the head of the table even in my house!

I love family gatherings. My sister lives in Canada and whenever she visits we try to arrange a gathering. We have various ways of doing so. My sister often rents a cottage somewhere in the UK when she visits with her husband - that way, they get to see another part of England and then various family members get to stay with them whilst they are away. Sometimes people overlap but it all normally works.

The last couple of times she has visited, we have invited my two sets of aunts and uncles, along with their children and grandchildren to spend an afternoon. The first time, we hosted it - it amounts to about 18 -25 people and we just provided drinks and a cold buffet. It worked well because at that time the only children were mine, so they were in their own environment and when they got bored with adults talking, they were able to go and play with their toys in their bedrooms.

They visited again this summer. I am now registered disabled and find it more difficult to do housework and cook. There are also more people - my children are older now but there were three children around 5-7. To make it less work for me, my sister asked if there was a hall or something similar we could hire. We ended up booking the Sports Pavilion just up the road from us. It has a large room, with a fully equipped kitchen, toilets and plenty of seating. Best of all, the doors in the main room open onto the playing fields and park. We ordered a cold buffet from M & S, I made some cakes and we provided tea, coffee and cold drinks (including some alcohol, which had to be consumed inside). As the weather was so nice, we placed the chairs just outside the doors and all enjoyed the sunshine. It was fantastic - my family of 6 and my sister and her husband all mucked in getting things ready and everyone helped clear away. Once everyone had left, we wandered home and could relax, without having to rearrange the whole house. Certainly was a great way to meet up with family without too much work.