Fun & Games

Happy belated new year! Did everyone enjoy their holidays? We did a lot of hosting here and have had a houseguest for a little while, so sorry for the absence. Along with the cooking and cleaning, I did some game development to keep our family and friends entertained. Here are two of the ideas I came up with.

Would You Rather - Family Edition:  I gave each person six index cards. They then had to write a Would You Rather question about our family on each card. Questions ranged from personal habits and likes/dislikes of family members to vacation incidents and school memories. I realized that I would be the target of many of the questions, such as these:

Would you rather listen to Dad's music during a two hour car ride OR have Mom continually ask, "What can we talk about now?'" during a two hour car ride? (Yes, I do this)

Would you rather have Mom comment as she watches you clean a bathroom OR have Dad comment as he watches you paint a bathroom?

My favorite question?  Would you rather be stuck in a Red Roof Inn room with (oldest daughter) OR stuck in a room with Mom and a centipede? (Because both would be a nightmare for anyone!)

The person who chose a card and read it would then use another index card labeled A or B to choose what they'd rather do. Everyone else would hold up their A or B card to vote what they thought the reader would choose. The reader would then reveal their answer (A or B) and points would be scored for correct guesses.

For our annual Cousin Christmas Party, I modified Jimmy Fallon's Box of Lies game so that everyone could play all at once. If you've never seen this on TV, it's a game that Jimmy plays with a celebrity where one of them opens a box (which always contains two weird things, such as a Barbie suspended in jello) and then either describes what's in the box or makes up something else.

A day in advance, I filled my bedroom with 30 weird combinations of objects. The day of the party, my husband and I took the box back and forth between our bedroom and put the objects in the box. One of the party goers would then open the box lid, peer inside, and then describe (or lie) about what was inside. It works best to have a lie thought up ahead of time, otherwise, it's obvious when someone is standing there, trying to formulate a lie. Everyone else then voted on whether it was the truth or a lie and received a point if correct.

Here are some of the things we used:

Mug shot of Justin Bieber in a key chain
Remote control stuck in a roll of toilet paper
Marshmallows stuck on the end of long screws
Rubber fishing worms in a candy box

Thing I learned: people in our extended family are terrible liars!

Maybe you can use these games for your next get-together.