What family games/rituals did you have, do you have that were/are really fun?

[applegrove]

For me it must have been the tippy raft. Growing up we had a cottage. My parents often had friends up at the cottage with their family. We'd all go swimming towards this tippy raft that would sink the more people who stood up on it. It was about 6 feet by 6 feet. Nine of us would get on it at the same time. I would sink slowly. At some point only my dad 6'2" and his friend George 6'4" would be the only ones with their heads above water. The rest of us would be holding our breath. Pretty soon the raft underwater would become unbalanced and start to shoot up in one direction or another. The trick at that point was to dive down and grab a hold of the wood planks through the gaps. Let all the other people roll over you as the raft popped up. Once the raft shot out of the water whoever was still on it won. It was a dangerous game but we all loved it.

[SOteric]

1. We played a game we called "Fictionary"

but apparently someone's gone and turned it into an actual board game one can purchase at the local Toys-R-Us. You need an impressive dictionary (we used the OED), an egg timer and several identical pads of paper and pencils (one for each player). Whomever's turn it is looks up some totally obscure word. Announces it to the group, spells it and then writes the definition on their personal pad. For the period of time it takes to drain the hourglass, everyone else uses their peronal pad and pencils to guess or make up a definition for the obscure word. Then everyone puts their definitions in a breadbasket and the defining participant reads them out. Everyone votes on which is correct and then on which is most amusing. 5 points if you guess correctly, 3 points if your definition is voted most amusing, and you lose 2 points everytime someone correctly 'gets' the definition of your obscure word.

We think it's fun.

:hi:

[suninvited]

3. there is a board game very similar

several years ago our family ( probably about twenty of us or so) went to pigeon forge and we had different rooms with different games going, and that one was a really fun game.

I dont remember what the name of it is, but the obscure words were provided and the points were given like you said except you didnt get most amusing points. And you got extra points if you got the actual definition.

[begin_within]

5. Balderdash

Not to your statement. That's the name of that game. I have it. It's pretty fun when you start writing ridiculous definitions like "an archaic practice of Carmelite nuns where they had habit races in the hallways at midnight to see who would have to clean the vestibule the next day"

[suninvited]

9. we really had a lot of fun playing that game

that gives me a good gift idea !!

[marzipanni]

24. Sounds like the bluffing round on "Says You" radio program

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Says_You!
http://www.saysyou.net/

[applegrove]

2. There was also a game where everybody writes down 5 words that define them (but not too obviously)

and other have to guess whose words they are.

[Kaleva]

4. we played roof ball

Using homemade rackets, the object of the game was to keep a rubber ball from hitting the ground after it bounced off either the sauna or summer kitchen roof.

[grasswire]

6. biscuit hockey

One year grandparents were visiting and the family gathering around the dinner table was about 12 people. The big wooden dining table had been cleared of everything but a basket of biscuits, and they were a bit hard that night. Somehow, one person zinged one of those biscuits down the length of the table like a hockey puck, using the teaspoon to propel it.

Well.

Chaos and hilarity ensued. We played biscuit hockey for a long time that night.

[foxfeet]

7. Pin the tail on the baby.

Welcome to the family!

[Bennyboy]

8. Sock ball.

Baseball wiht a ball of socks. In the house. We played that all the time.

[pinboy3niner]

10. "Bake Mom a Cake"

I awoke one morning to an awful burning smell in the house. When I went to the kitchen, I found that my toddler little brother had decided to bake Mom a cake by pouring a box of dry cake mix into a pan and putting it on the burner.

After slipping back into bed, I started shouting, "Mom! Dad! Wake up! Jimmy's burnin' somethin'!"

The fun part was what happened to Jimmy when Mom and Dad got up. :)

Unfortunately, we only got to play that game once. :(

[applegrove]

12. That is so cute and so scary at the same time.

[HERVEPA]

11. Feats of strength and airing of grievances

[trof]

13. FESTIVUS! For The RESTUVUS!

:-)

[Kali]

14. oh you said fun

nevermind - our family games and rituals were not fun. AT ALL

[applegrove]

15. That not true. All families have fun moments even if they are geekie.

[Kali]

16. we played see if we can make a kid cry at the dinner-table by interrogating and humiliating

or we played placate the angry, drunk parent

those kinds of games and rituals :-(

I STILL hate eating meals around a family table. Doesn't help with the weight or relationships with kids but that is one of my heavy pieces of baggage I can't seem to shed.

sorry to be a debi-downer on your thread.

[applegrove]

18. Oh I'm sorry you had such a tough childhood. I would never have guessed that about you.

You bring such light to the DU. I look forward to your posts.

[Kali]

21. eh

it was a semi-privileged, white, middle class childhood - no violence or incest or poverty or any REALLY horrible things that too many endure.

I shouldn't have whined, again sorry for dumping in your thread - the headline just kind of reminded me of the head games that went on rather than the fun that might have happened.

Thankyou for the kind words!

[begin_within]

17. We played Michigan Rummy a lot

It's a pretty simplistic game, but it has to be for kids to understand it and still keep adults interested. We just played rounds of it over and over until we got tired and someone had all the poker chips.

[siligut]

19. My dad would always want to see how long he could coast, coming back from the mountains.

The mountains were 20 miles from our house and it was a steady climb to get to the foothills. We would go picnic or hike in the mountains and then, on the way back my dad would shift into neutral at the base of the foothills and try to coast all the way home. This was 40 years ago in Albuquerque and we lived in the heights, so there weren't too many lights or stop signs. If he had to stop, he would just get going again and then continue to coast. It was mostly fun because my dad loved it and mom hated it.

Your tippy raft game does sound like fun!

[applegrove]

20. Your dad sounds like a character. Yes we had rituals in the car too.

On the dirt road in the woods on the way up to the cottage, we used to try and grab as much foliage out the open car windows. The kid with the most foliage inside the car at the end of the trip won. It was all well and good until you tried to grab the foliage off the raspberry bushes which had thorn/spikes on them. Of course my sister, being older, figured out that the car was always closer to one side of the road than the other and she would take that side...and then win.

[Mojambo]

22. Rat Ball

Played in a 4 1/2 foot above ground pool that had a basketball board and rim mounted on one end. It was basically a basketball version of kill the carrier. Two teams trying to get the ball in the basket. When an opponent had the ball you attacked them and basically tried to pull them under water and drown them to the point that they had to let go of the ball.

Super fun game, but there were many, many injuries and near deaths.

[applegrove]

23. Sounds like water polo. I once was at a family reunion. Two branches of the family

had a water polo game to the death. Our side won which was pretty cool because we were all skinny at the time and those cousins were all huge. Speed and aggression won out over size that day.

[tigereye]

25. for holidays my mom would put on a nice version of Ave Maria and we

would carry the statue of Baby Jesus to the creche. She had a lovely carved wooden creche that my uncle had sent from Rome. And then on Christmas morning she would put on Handel's Messiah. Nice memories.

We also did the Advent rituals and wreath, as well as an Advent Calendar. I still get the Advent Calendar for my son, even though I am not really religious anymore.

[KamaAina]

26. To this day, Mom and I speak "Airplane!"

Examples: Mom: "Half a cup plus a quarter cup, so that comes to three-quarters of a cup altogether." Mom and I in unison: "That comes to three-quarters of a cup!"

Me: "The heat's off again." Mom: "The heat?" Me: "It's a basketball team in Miami with LeBron James, but that's not important right now." :-)

[KamaAina]

27. Rug spotting

I'm third-generation, you see. Grandma and Grandpa spent their final years in front of the tube in Ocala, Fla., spotting rugs. "Now you know that's a rug!" "It's a good one, though." "Oh, he has." "Most of them do." "Grandma, President Clinton does NOT have a rug!"

Well, after spending some time down there with them one Thanksgiving, we realized they were right. There really are a lot of rugs out there, and some of them are pretty egregious. And so, the tradition lives on!

[Arugula Latte]

28. "Butt Cheek" holiday cookies

It started years ago when I was making sugar cookies with my kids, who were really little then. We had leftover dough and rolled them into circles (I was originally thinking we'd make a snowman). For some reason we decided two stuck together was a butt, and ever since then my kids have had to make some buttcheeks along with the santas, stockings and trees.

P.S. I am immature and I always find this amusing. :D

[applegrove]

30. Joining in your kids sense of fun does not make you immature. It makes you fun.

[Arugula Latte]

32. Thank you.

:hi:

[Ahpook]

29. Extremely odd Christman gifts

My uncle would gag every year, which was cool. It seemed to poke fun at the mad rush some make during this time of year.

I remember a Hulk Hogan poster, a HUGE can of baked beans and a super cheap bottle of tequila. In that same package was a bartenders type vest with a pink poodle embroidered on it.

I miss that:)

[applegrove]

31. I know what you mean. I have a brother who started out as a young conservative and was all business

oriented when he was a tween. He was also cheap. He once gave me a used spyrograph set with used pencils (they had been chewed). We still tease him about that LOL!. He did a flip and became left wing in his late teens thank god.

[tabbycat31]

33. We went to a lake a lot growing up

And there was this old dock floating in the water (wooden with about a dozen planks).

We would play with that thing for hours on end. Our favorite was doing rock paper scissors and the loser had to move over one plank until you went overboard.

[Forkboy]

34. My father used to play Hide and Go Fuck Yourself with us kids.

Ahhh, good times!

For those wondering, that's just a Rodney Dangerfield line. My father is much crazier than that!