Friday, February 15, 2008

friday flashback - game night

It's been fairly well documented that I enjoy family game night, but this post isn't about Monopoly Jr. with Abby. There was game night when I was a kid too. Notice I left off the "family". We didn't have that when I was growing up. Sure we had board games and Dave and I did our fair share of fighting over Monopoly, but I don't really recall sitting down as a family to play chutes and ladders or anything like that. I remember Mom playing games with us, but not Dad. I mean he could have, I just don't remember. Plus he was more of a get down on the floor and wrestle with you kind of Dad.

My parents did play games though. Boggle was a huge favourite. And cards, Euchre mostly I think. Or if they were with my Mom's family, Holy. A card game that I still can't make heads or tails out of except it seems to require lots of yelling. I think Mike sat in on exactly one game and hasn't yet gotten the nerve back up to try again.

My childhood version of game night involved my parent's inviting another family over. The kids would play while the grown ups were seeing if they could score a six letter word in Boggle. Mom would buy the fancy crackers (vegetable thins). I remember as the evening got later us kids would get quieter and quieter, hoping our parents wouldn't notice the time and bring the evening to an end. Yep, game night with my parents was fun even if I never actually played a game.

I'm not quite sure why I was thinking about this today. I told Mike about it, assuming he had the same experience with his parents. I was surprised that he hadn't. I guess it was just my parents thing. To be honest, now that I think about it, I don't remember going to another family's house for game night. I believe it was always at our house (am I right Mom?). Back in our newly married days we had another couple we'd get together with to play cards, but we haven't done that since the arrival of our collective kids. I wonder why? Seems to me the perfect combination of fun and frugalness for the whole family. Two whole families actually. Maybe I'll have to spear head a campaign to bring back grown up game night. Who's up for Boggle?

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