Every family has its own ways to negotiate big holiday gatherings.
In mine, there are games.
I’m not saying everyone loves them, but once we get the buzzkills on board, we’re all fiercely competitive.
Since we grew up poor, we’ve also learned to make a game out of almost anything – no purchase necessary.
It turns out that holds up well these days too, especially if you’re trying to keep distracting smart phones out of the equation.
Below is a quick synopsis of five of our favourite games. You won't need much beyond a big group of people and the energy to wrangle them into cooperation.
The dictionary game
Back when I was in high school, we discovered the dictionary game. Nowadays, you can buy Balderdash, which is a fancy version of the same thing, but, back in the day, all we needed was a dictionary, some slips of paper and something to write with.
One person picks a word from the dictionary, making sure no one in the group knows what it means. Then everyone makes up their own, fake definition to fool everyone else with. The fun comes from fooling others with the most ridiculous definition possible – something for which my sister has an annoying knack.
“A freak hatching or three mosquitoes leaving the nest at once” has become legendary as the stupidest fake definition I’ve ever fallen for. I know, it doesn’t even make sense.
Charades
Charades is, of course, another family favourite. I grew up with it, and I’d really love for my millennial children, nieces and nephews to embrace it. We made some headway during a recent family gathering, so I have high hopes for Christmas.
It’s not easy to stand in front of a crowded room and try to act out “overwhelm” or “slither” if you’re an introvert and people just aren’t getting it, but I’ve found the most spectacular failures are the most hilarious and memorable. This is your chance to get up there and distinguish yourself in family lore – as my daughter did one year trying to act out “future” by pretending to be a fortune teller. She looked deranged.
To keep the cell phones out of it, I recommend teams write out a collection of words for the other team to guess. Then use a kitchen timer to set the time limit for guessing.
The sack game
This one is a recent addition from my son’s girlfriend. I instantly admired its exquisite simplicity and its capacity for making assigning dish duty fun.
It goes like this. Fill two pillow cases, or any similar sack, with the same collection of random household items. It doesn’t matter what you put in the bags as long as there is one of everything in each bag: two safety pins, two spoons, two cell phones, two loonies, two buttons, two bananas. The possibilities are endless. Make sure you make a list of everything in the bags.
Divide the group into two and have each person compete with a person on the other team. When a competing pair is ready, read out an item. Without peeking into the bag, whoever pulls out the right item first earns their team a point. Once everyone has had a turn or two or three, the team with the most points wins.
In my house, those people are relieved from dish duty.
Werewolves and villagers
Here you’ll need a moderator and a set of regular playing cards.
For the most basic version of the game, group members are divided into villagers and werewolves based on which card they draw.
To start the game, the village goes to sleep (everyone closes their eyes) and the werewolves (usually one or two) wake up and choose their first victim (i.e. open their eyes and silently point to the first person who will be eliminated). Having done their evil deed, the werewolves close their eyes once more.
The whole village (including the secret werewolves) then wakes up, finds out who the first victim is and tries to figure out who the werewolves are (via raucous debate followed by a show of hands). If the group picks the wrong person, that villager is also eliminated, and the game goes to the next round.
The goal is for the village to identify the werewolves before they “kill” the whole village.
Fuzzy duck
(This game comes with a PG13 warning. I don’t advise playing it with small children unless you’re OK with them blurting out the occasional F-bomb.)
Some people play this as a drinking game, but in my family it’s an elimination game that ends in a tense showdown between two people.
Starting clockwise in a circle, each person says “fuzzy duck.” To change directions, anyone at any time can say “does he?” The direction then changes and everyone has to take turns saying “ducky fuzz” until the next person says “does he?” and the direction and phrase change once more.
Anyone who messes up the words they are supposed to say is eliminated.
The fun, of course, is listening to people swear extravagantly when they’re trying so hard not to.
Enjoy!
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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