Games Night

Last night my husband and I hosted a Games Night at our house in which we invited various nearby family members and a mutual friend (& her husband) of my sister and me. This was on my list of ‘19 in 2019’ as part of my effort to better connect with family and friends. Also, February can be such a depressing month that having a party is certainly a good pick-me up.

After filling up on pizza, brownies, cupcakes and various other snacks (including fruit to balance out all the naughtiness : )  it was time for an Ice Breaker to get things started. This was my sister’s idea after coming across it on Pinterest. The one we did was like Left, Right & Center, but you use candy (in this case Hershey kisses) and always pass a piece to the person on your right if you can answer ‘Yes’ to the question. For instance, ‘I’ve gone more than 3 days without taking a shower.’ The person with the most candy at the end of the game wins. However, unlike Left, Right & Center, most of us still had some kisses left by the end of the game, and several of us were tied. Then we each took a turn at coming up with our own question for the group. It was funny seeing how many of us answered affirmatively to the many questions. There’s also a drinking version of this game, but there were two children in a nearby room, so we had to keep it ‘PG.’

Following that, my cousins chose some games from the stack I had laid out on a table in my library. The first one we played was Buzzwords (Girls versus Guys). In this game you have 45 seconds to come up with the phrase containing the common Buzzword in 10 clues. Like all clues will have the word ‘Red’ paired up with another word so your answer might be ‘Red-Handed’ for instance. I enjoyed this game because it relies on speed and knowledge, and we did pretty well, though I think the Guys team still won.

The next selection was What’s Yours Like? In this game a card is passed around with a word that everyone but the person guessing gets to see. Then everyone takes turns describing theirs without being too obvious about it. One of the ones we had was 'your street/the road you live on.' I told my cousin, who is totally the Clark Griswold on his street (as far as Xmas lights are concerned) that he should have described his like 'sometimes it has lots of Xmas lights.' Sadly, he didn’t think of it at the time, or perhaps that clue would have been too obvious??? I love the two clues his daughters provided. The younger one said, 'Mom says we have lots of yahoos on ours!' while the other answered, 'Mom said no one knows how to park on ours.' Out of the mouths of babes.... 

The last game selected was one of our new ones called Who’s Most Likely To… Of course this game relies on familiarity between its players. To be honest, my cousins and we struggled a bit as I don’t think we know each other as well as we thought, so it was difficult to name a candidate straight off the bat for most of the questions. The only one that got a chorus of agreement straight away was the question, ‘Who’s Most Likely to Tell the Same Story (repeatedly)?’ In this case, my father’s name came up unanimously. Of course I called him to share that bit of info, and he was a good sport about it (not being entirely surprised I’m sure). He even shared a funny joke with the group before I let him get back to the TV show he was watching.

All in all it was a pretty entertaining evening as we played a good cross-section of games that tested our knowledge and familiarity. I can recommend all three, and if you live close by, I would even be happy to loan you a game.