With the official start of summer next week, friends, families and classmates will get together for celebrations in the coming months.
In 2012, getting an invitation to a summer gathering is a little different than it was decades ago, however.
I've received relatives' graduation party and wedding invitations through the mail this spring, but I've also gotten some on Facebook. Yes, people are now inviting loved ones to their weddings via Facebook, as difficult as that may be for some to believe.
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The invitations look a whole lot less personal than the ones I've hung on my fridge, but I guess they do the same job. I know where to be and when to be there if I choose to attend. The folks getting married and parents of the graduates save a hefty chunk of change as well.
It's a little more socially acceptable to invite friends to a high school class reunion via Facebook than it is to invite them to a wedding using the social-networking site. It's hard for class officers to keep track of everyone they graduated with when many classmates have left the Jamestown area. Also, many people aren't listed in the phone book these days by choice or just because they don't have land lines, making it difficult to track them down.
We've gotten our fair share of class and family reunion announcement submissions at the paper this spring. We've printed reunion information for classes that graduated in the 1940s and several decades sooner.
That's not exactly the most personalized way to send an invitation either, but it allows class officers to get the word out to the masses, helping them track down hard-to-find people.
In tough economic times, maybe it's too much to ask people to print and mail invitations to their friends and family anyway. Those who make the extra effort will probably get a better turnout, though, and people like me won't forget about their events. We'll think of them every time we reach for the leftovers.