Saturday Surprise — Game On!
November 28, 2020
Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Ours was quiet — just me, Mr. James, my folks and my aunt. As usual, my mother outdid herself. Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday and she loves to cook so I usually just step aside and let her do her thing. She is awesome in that she knows I don’t like turkey so she always makes a ham too. And since I’m the only one who likes pecan pie, I never make it because I don’t need to eat a whole damn pie by myself (I will, I promise) so this year she surprised me with little pecan tartlets that were so yummy. Plus, she made this amazing little spice cake loaf–sans cinnamon since I’m allergic–and it might’ve been the best one I’ve ever eaten!
So after we ate, and did the dishes, and we ladies talked about crafting as the guys napped, and had the zoom call with the grandbaby and her parents, we got out the games.
Traditionally in our family, we play Tripoley. And yes, my folks even have this super old Tripoley board:
Oddly enough, Mr. James family had the same tradition. But where we had a jar of pennies that we used specifically for the game, their family played with ACTUAL MONEY. Okay, nickels and dimes, quarters if you were feeling lucky, but still….regardless, it was so much fun, especially when a player had the cards for the 8-9-10 jackpot but never got to play them 😝
So here’s a little parenting confession: our girls never had video games. Yes, they played games on the computer, and even when I wonder if we did them a disservice in the social/cultural aspect of growing up, the truth is: they never asked for a gaming system. Not one of them, not ever. Which meant our family hours were spent playing traditional board games when we had spare time. In their younger years we played everything from Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Hi-Ho Cherry-O! to Hungry, Hungry Hippos, Pretty, Pretty Princess, and Bop-It! Plus the traditional card games like Go-Fish, Crazy 8’s, and Old Maid. Happy memories. And of course this game, which is still one of my very favorites 🙂
The newlyweds actually registered for a couple of board games on their wedding registry. When we were down visiting them in July, we played Ticket To Ride game with them. And I loved it so much I bought us our own!
It is a really fun game where you build a railroad across the country and get points– which is way too simple an explanation, but it is fun. We brought it out to my folks’ on Thanksgiving, since we’d played it once before and they’d enjoyed it.
A few years back I was looking for new games for us to play as adults — yes, we’ve played Apples to Apples, Sour Apples, Cards Against Humanity, Crows Against Vulgarity — but there are some games that they don’t want to play with us and we don’t want to play with the older generation — so I went searching and found this one:
It’s easy to learn, fast, fun, and cheap to buy. We usually find time to play it at least once when we are together. Another recent addition to the family is Left, Right, Center, which is a ridiculously easy game that is 100% luck — no strategy is required at all. It too, is simple, fast-paced and cheap to buy!
Over the years we played a dice game called Up and Down the River, so imagine our surprise when we realized there is a game called Farkle that is identical to that game, but it comes with cooler dice colors. We’ve had several marathons with this game too.
Another funny family tradition — about 20 years ago I found this game called Pass The Pigs. At that time, my brother, husband and I were in a war to see who could give the most ridiculous “pig-themed” Christmas gift. Well, that year the joke was on me because we all had a great time playing it and it’s become a tradition 😄
Our youngest daughter spent a summer in Spain and the whole family went over there on vacay. One of the highlights of the trip was seeing the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Truly, truly one of the most awe-inspiring churches I’ve ever been in. When I saw this game, I knew we had to have it.
It is not a cheap game, but it is so pretty. It isn’t a super easy game to play the first couple of times, but it is worth it sticking with it (we watched a YouTube demo on how to play that helped us a lot) What I do like about it, is it has a set number of rounds, and it is easily played with 2 players.
So tell me…does anyone still play traditional board games? If so, which ones? Is it a tradition in your family? Share with me peeps, I’m curious!
XOXO
L~
PS- Check last week’s post because that’s where I posted the contest winners and I haven’t heard from any of the winners 😔🙃🤓
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Samantha Henning said:
We love family game night! With hubby deploying and now the middle.one enlisting, spending time as a family was a priority so we would play uno, phase 10, trivial pursuit and others together. Some of my 3 kids favorite memories are of the games we play!
Angie Malone said:
My family and I love board games and we played them often, especially during the holidays. Risk, yahtzee, and card games including blackjack. Our favorite game is Monopoly. I love it so much that I have several versions and am proud to have passed on my love for the game to all my nieces and nephews!
Jennifer Beyer said:
I love LRC and Farkle! Math games are my favorites.
Yasmeen said:
We love good game nights! My husband and I went to my sisters for the holiday. Where her, her husband, my father, my husband and I played Uno till 2 am! It got intense! Hahah
Katey Smith said:
We played cards, which I still think is one of the reasons my boys are so good at math -cribbage, canasta, and of course sheephead because we were from Wisconsin. There isn’t a board game we haven’t played, we would add Sequence and all of the trivial pursuit games to your list.
Jenny said:
We usually don’t play games with our little family. But when we used to live next to our friends we played a few games. Hand and foot was a common card game played.
Jacey said:
We love playing games at holiday time! When the kids were younger it was always Yahtzee, Sorry, Skip-Bo, Dominos. As they’ve gotten older and we have more people, we’ve had to switch to card games like; International Rummy, Poop on your Neighbor and Tic. And we play the dice games like LRC, 654 and use Dominoes to play Cardinal’s Mexican Train game.
Kristie Galindo said:
We love game night with our adult kids. Scrabble…non-traditional – Codenames, Cards Against Humanity and Sushi Go.
Mary said:
Favorite family and friends game is Mexican Train Dominoes.
Ellen Bartel said:
My family is big into the games at Thanksgiving! My kids like Farkle, I’ve never played. But CLR is one we all like to play and we use quarters instead of the chips that come with it. Happy Thanksgiving!
Debbie Bales said:
This year was a bit different for the games, we came from a couple of different households we didn’t play any of the usual games. Played a few rounds of games where 1 person holds a phone to their forehead any everyone gives clues for the person holding the phone to guess what it was. Invented a new game where we guessed the colors in a 48-ct box of Crayola crayons; that was hysterical because some of them had the most bizarre names. Normally we’d play Tripoley (my sister and I grew up playing this with our parents), Left Right Center and Cards Against Humanity.
Michelle D Holden said:
We loved playing board/card games! Trivial Pursuit, Yahtzee, Mille Bornes, Scattergories, Uno, Payday, Scrabble. I still buy games and have not played many of them since my husband died and my son will play Scrabble, Uno or Yahtzee with me.
I don’t like turkey either and I made a ham and mashed potatoes (my mashies are legendary and honestly I’d eat just them if I could)
I made candied pecans and took some into my job and gave to my next door neighbors too as well as making them a big jar of my homemade salsa.
We had a quiet turkey day went out late afternoon on Friday did a little shopping on Friday but have stayed home today.
I’m glad you had a nice Thanksgiving and enjoyed your babysitting time.
Sherry Anderson said:
This year I got to work. We did have 1 baby born while I was there. When we celebrate with my husband’s family we play Gigggy, a card game, dominos, or other card games. I grew up playing all kinds of board games and card games, or putting puzzles together. The only video games growing up I got to play were Atari games when we would visit my aunt. My daughter who serves in the Air Force, sent me video of several families playing card and board games, but also a physical game called ninja. She said you start our with being able to use arms and legs, but when a limb is tagged, you can no longer use it. It looked like it would be fun if you are young and flexible.
Lois said:
So we play games too, depending on who’s visiting, but lately we’ve been playing tri-ominoes like crazy. Very fun and extremely cut throat and (mock) vicious. Other times we play lots of cribbage, euchre, and lately, apples to apples.
Juli said:
My family loves Ticket to Ride, it’s so much fun
Anne Stevens said:
We do love board and card games. I went on a mission to discover lots of card games that are played with a simple deck. That way, we could just pack one deck for car rides and long waits and not rely solely on cell phones for entertainment. We love 31, Switch, and Cuckoo the most (my kids are 11 & 13). We love Qwixx and Pass the Pigs too! (My daughter loves pigs.) GameWright has some amazing card games…we are never disappointed with any of those. And Labyrinth is becoming a fave lately. We have sooo many! My kids also play video games though. It does suck them away from family games more than I like. Had to find a balance where they still love the board/card games but don’t feel forced to play them.
Judy Cohen said:
My family is currently playing Code Words. We also play Trivial Pursuit, Apples to Apples and Scattergories, among others. The only board game I won’t play is Monopoly.
Amy Perrault said:
We love board games. We have spent full nights playing different games
kc said:
Lorelei, I was playing with the same “board” on Thursday as well! I say “board” because it’s a sheet of plastic that folds up nicely & takes up little space. We’ve used poker chips for decades: Dad made holders for storage between games; one holder has 16 100 ct stacks & the other has 8 175 ct stacks; we usually use 2 stacks of the 100 ct so you start with “$200.” Makes it so easy to just pull up the stacks & put them at each person’s place as we’re setting up. I finished the game having only lost $15. Last week, I was in much worst shape & glad I’d not bought a lottery ticket. I hate not being able to play the King/Queen of Hearts: then I lose chips from 3 spots! We often recheck our hand for the 8-9-10 set when buying the spare hand! Whoops!
Yes, we travel with a deck of cards in someone’s purse. The family tends towards “Oh, Hell” or “Spit on your Neighbor”–now known as Uno as we can use a pen & paper to keep score & don’t need the chips. Dad prefers card games over board games altho he will also play dominos (I think our version is close to Mexican Train)
We enjoy Uno, Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Cataan, Apples to Apples (altho my nephew (22 yrs old) doesn’t recognize a lot of the people in our set. Yeah, that can get depressing!) Actually, my brother & nephew both love a wide variety of board games & play with gamers quite a lot! We also played lots of Trivial Pursuit years back & I realized the other day how many different versions I have in the closet! I should probably weed…nope, not yet!
I’m sorry you’re allergic to cinnamon! I’d hate having to give cinnamon up as I love both the taste & smell! The pecan tarts sound great! And no turkey at our meal either: Dad doesn’t like turkey. Used to be with the big meal, Mom would make sure we had turkey & ham on the table. Now it’s usually only ham, and this year it was just 4 of us; Dad, me, sister & bil. Other family members self-quarantined & had their own feasts & face-booked pictures. Ah well, next year, we should be back to normal…or as close as we’ll ever get again!
I’m glad you had a great time & isn’t it wonderful that we can “see” others via the tech? So much of my life, if you could afford the long-distance costs, you relied on phone calls to connect. Compared to today’s options, not great, but at the time, it was wonderful to hear their voices! Folks never like hearing the “way it used to be” but I think maybe because they don’t like to realize how great they have it now & what it could still be!
Nicole said:
My brother is a HUGE board game fan. He got married a year ago and he had a game wedding. Every table had a different game to play. It was so much fun. Then at the end of the night, everyone got to take home a game if they wanted. We have a family created game that involves three decks of cards (2 cut up and placed on a board) so my other brother and I made a fancy version as a wedding present to the first brother. A little family history on the back too.
Kim Burson said:
We played games often as a family on Saturday nights as my Dad would be leaving on Sunday for work on the railroad for the week. He would have loved the train game you described I’m going to have to look into getting it. Growing up at our big family gatherings it was Euchre.
Kimbe
Shelly Wegand said:
We pul out checkers, battleship, life, rich farmer poor farmer just to list a few. Will have to add to our selection with some you listed
Dawn said:
We played game when I was a kid, but not so much as a teenager. I went in the Navy and we played pinochle, Cribbage and Backgammon/ace duce.
Now we play cribbage and dominos with my in-laws.
Kristie Heath said:
Oh Tripoley! My family use to play this when I was a teenager especially at Christmas and New Year’s Eve. My Dad had a huge amount of poker chips that my brothers and I thought were so much fun to play with! We had so much fun. We also played Life! So much fun getting your little car and filling it up with kids. My youngest brother was hurt when he was 18, now at 47 he is a very special person with the heart of a 7 year old. When in the hospital he learned to play Sorry! He is a master of Sorry and we play every year. When he’s able to go to “Brain Camp” (Brain Injury Association of Georgia) each year, he plays with counselors and other campers and trounces them. He has so much fun, although you have to watch him. He will cheat. 😉 My Mom and I make sure we use the Sorry feature quite often on him, but he’ll still win. Thanks for the wonderful reminder of memories. Take Care!
Pamela Gomes said:
My son and I love Diagon Alley, a Harry Potter game. Now that he’s in Texas and I’m still in California, we don’t get to play but we’re looking into ways to play remotely. So glad you had a tradition filled Thanksgiving day!
Michele Camoirano said:
Sequence is the game my family likes to play.
We play in teams all summer and it gets very competitive.
Rolanda Tovey said:
We played UNO with the girls when they were young, hell, we still play it sometimes….but it could be a full contact sport. 🙂