So, coming out...

Hello everyone. I'm a 20 year old male and I've known myself to be gay for about six years now, though I've tried to either deny it or ignore it for half that time. For the last couple of years I've been trying to "embrace" my sexual orientation and I've realized that there's really no way around it. Also I've been feeling an increasing need to be with someone who really cares for me, and I feel like I can only do that if I'm "out of the closet". While I'm not ready yet to come out to any of my straight friends, I've been thinking about telling some of my family members. My family is not particularly conservative and both my parents abhor gay discrimination and are all for gay rights, but I am always afraid that they won't react so predictably if it is their son who is gay. So what I'm mainly looking for are advices on how to do it as smoothly as possible. How did you tell your family? Did you come out to one person first and then to everyone? How did you go about it? Really any kind of avice/experience is welcome.