Happy 1am (here in Ontario)... I am just arriving home from a visit with my boyfriend's family to cover the summer birthdays, but his sister's birthday is in two weeks so she's the closest and it was hosted at her place with a bunch of her common-law's friends and her friends as well. Before that, we stopped in at my nephew's little kid birthday party (he turns 4 today) to watch him while my brother got stuff set up. A long and busy and very social day...

 

How often do you get together with your family? Is it a full scale thing with extended family, small and personal with immediate family, inclusive of friends, etc.?

I see my family once every 3-4 months minimum. Once fall hits and people aren't vacationing, we get together more often. In the fall, we have my grandfather's death anniversary, my nephew's birthday, my brother's birthday, Thanksgiving, my grandmother's birthday, my sister-in-law's birthday (whole dad's side of the family for the first one, whole family for grandmother's birthday), and then winter we have my departed grandfather's birthday, my birthday, and Christmas. In January/February, we have my eldest brother's birthday, my father's birthday, Chinese New Year. We usually don't meet again till Mother's Day which is close to my mother's birthday. In the summer, we meet for Father's Day and I think that holds us over until fall hits again. We only get together for birthdays on a small scale if people have time. When the whole family gets together, it's for about half a day (just lunch, so we all have time to hit up the in-laws') so it's frequent but short.

My mom's side of the family seems even less frequent now that all of the "kids" are older and working or in school in other cities. Plus, business-owning parents don't have much time either, but we try and make due with short lunch meetings too. Our family get togethers are almost exclusively on Sundays. The only exception is Christmas Day.

My boyfriend's family on the other hand gets together 2-3 times a year, just his parents, siblings, and their children for about 14 hours of the day, which is completely exhausting for me.  

Well, I live with my family, but I'm da person who's in their room all day, (Or taking walks outside, I have grown very independent lately.) but I do enjoy spending time with my family.

Let's see-

Conversations with my mom

Laughing with my dad

Video games with my brother

Pets are family, with them 24/7/365.

I don't get to see my other family that much

Grandma on father's side - not since birth

Grandma on mother's side - three years

Grandpa on mother's side - 5 or 6 years I can't remember

Sadly, my grandpa on my father's side passed away before I was born

Aunt on mother's side - I think like March 2014

Uncle on mother's side - almost a year ago

Never met the aunt's on my father's side

I have a five year old cousin who I like to think of as my little sister, I think it's been about 1-2 years.

Other cousins - like 5 or six years maybe

Pretty descriptive.

Oh yeah, my uncle's wife is going to have a baby in October, and my aunt on my mother's side is getting married in October!

Last time I went home was 6 years ago; last time my family (immediate only, we pretty much have no relations with my extended family) got together was summer of last year. My sister visits once a year or so; last time I went to Toronto to visit her was in 2011. 

At this point, it's just me, my brother, and my sister and our spouses and children. And Rick's parents and sister and her spouse. 

My sister and I get together quite a bit for various things: shopping, antiquing, Chinese, etc. When my nephew and his GF came home last weekend, they invited us over for dinner. Sometimes I'll call her or she'll call me and we'll decide to go to dinner. We spend a lot of time by our pools at night after work (which is sad because our pools are now closed) with a bottle of wine or a couple of bottles of Smirnoff Ice in the summer. She'll call and say, "I'm on my way over" and the pool thing is just a chance for us to talk about everything. Or I'll call her.

My brother and I don't really get together without our spouses. I used to call to invite him for lunch, but my SIL would always come along. Now, please don't take it the wrong way. I love my SIL, but sometimes it's nice just for my brother and I to get together without spouses. Just for a quick lunch or something. We used to do that quite a bit, but we haven't done it in ages.

For most of the holidays, our son's family has to spend them with DIL's family. It's just the way it is and it's been that way ever since they got married. We've learned to deal with it. They come up for picnics and such and we go down there. We try to see the grandchildren at least once a month, although with all of us working and such, it's difficult. Rick has a lot more vacation time than I do, so he can just take a day off work and spend it with the grandchildren. 

My sister and I take turns doing the holiday dinners and everybody goes to our homes, so we see all family then. And in-between when my nieces and nephews come home, they always visit with us or we with them. We try to stay in contact. It's just us now since Mom and Dad are both gone.

Rick's family....well, his Mom comes to dinner every time we invite her. His father is kind of weird in that he's gotten to the point where he doesn't want to leave the house anymore. He's really depressed, although he would never admit it. He will no longer even come down to our house for dinner. Rick and his mom go to church almost every Sunday; it's the only way she'll really get there anymore and Rick knows it's important to her to go. We get together with Rick's sister and BIL for dinner sometimes, but those are pretty much just "complain about the parents" dinners; we're supposed to be having dinner with them in a couple of weeks, once Rick is home again.

We do have a bit of extended family with cousins....we now have no aunts or uncles at all. Pretty much the only time I see any of my cousins anymore is a wedding or a funeral. I do stay in contact with many of them via email or FB, but that's it. 

I see my parents every 2 weeks or so and my husbands parents every 3 or 4 months.  I don't have siblings but my husbands does.  We only see them once a year or so.

No parents.
One 95 year old uncle I see every few weeks.
Son daughter and grandchildren every second week.
sister once a week when she's here.