Some extended families gather here every year, while others plan reunions around special events like weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries. For many, the family gathering is a much-loved tradition, and one that is eagerly anticipated all year long by young and old alike. Family members seldom turn down an invitation to come here. One such place is the Lighthouse Inn off Nantucket Sound in Dennis, which hosts a number of family reunions every summer. One family, she says, has been coming to the inn since the 1940s.
Some family gatherings are larger than the average.
Take the Nickerson clan, for instance, which gathers anywhere from 85 to 250 family members to Chatham for its annual reunion. The equally historic and prolific Wing family can count on 135 to 150 relations to show up at the family's ancestral home in East Sandwich for a reunion that takes place here just about every year. As with the Nickersons, Wing descendants settled the Cape in the early 1600s. History credits Nickersons as being founders of Chatham, and the Wings as Brewster's first settlers. The Wings migrated to Brewster from Sandwich.