My upscale niece (and her husband) from New York taught us another fun game on New Year’s Day while we were at my mother’s home. It’s called Things. Here’s how it works.

Select a player to be the reader.  The reader decides a topic about ‘things.’  Such as ‘things you can buy at the mall’ or ‘things to eat as a snack’ or ‘things to do that drives your siblings crazy.’

Give each player a slip of paper. Have them write an answer to that topic and give the paper to the reader without letting anybody see what was written. The reader then says the answers out loud.  The players go around the circle trying to guess which person wrote which answer. If a player guessed correctly, the person whose answer was guessed correctly is ‘out’ for that round of play.  The player who guessed correctly keeps guessing until he makes an incorrect guess.  Then the play goes to the next person.  The last person left wins the round.

On the new round, the person sitting next to the left of the reader is the new reader.  She selects a different topic, people write down a response, and people try guessing who said what.

To make this challenging, you can write down something that is not in line with the type of thing that people might normally connect with you.  Say that the topic was things you can buy at the mall.  My family knows that I am an avid reader.  So if I wrote ‘a book,’ everyone would immediately think of me.  To throw them off, I could write something like long boarder pants since I am not into long boarding!

Now that I’ve explained the game, I just have to tell you what happened while we were playing.  The topic was ‘things you don’t want your mother to know.’ Some of the answers were ‘how many people you kissed in high school’ and ‘that you broke a window’ and ‘your grade in your math class in your first semester as a freshman in college.’

We were having a hard time guessing who wrote about the grade they got as a college freshman.  Someone finally guessed correctly.  It was my sister who wrote that.  We started harassing her about the grade.

“Was it a one-legged A?” I asked — meaning was it an F.

“Was it a D?”

“Come on!  Tell us what it was!”

There was lots of laughter and good-natured joking about it.  During all of this hullabaloo, my mother quietly got up, left the room, and then came back.  She held out two pieces of paper to my sister.

“Do you mean these grades?” she asked.

We immediately burst into gut-busting laughter. My mother had produced my sister’s report card from her first semester in college from forty years ago!  I don’t know who was more surprised: my sister that my mom really had her grades or the rest of the family to see the look on my sister’s face.

We laughed and laughed.  It took us over 10 minutes to settle down.

My mother has moved three times in the last 40 years.  What are the odds that she would still have a copy of my sister’s grades?  When asked why she still had them, she merely said, “I just thought that someday it might be interesting to see them.”

So, who would have thought that topic would have been selected.  Who would have thought that my sister would have written about a poor grade from a college class she took forty years ago.  And who would have thought that my mother would really still have a copy of those grades after all of these years!

So, gather your children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors, or random man off the street and play this game.  There’s no preparation and it’s a hoot to play!

(NOTE: You can buy the game for $30.  Or you can play it without purchasing it.  We did and it turned out just fine.  In fact, it turned out hilarious!)

My mother hosted a lovely dinner on New Year’s Day for family members. My niece and her husband, who live in New York City, were there. Being from that wonderful, avant guard city (compared to the backwaters where I live . . .) they are up on all the cool new games. They taught us two.  I’ll share one of them today and then the other one tomorrow.

The first game they taught us was called the Name Game.  This game would be fun to play with teen-aged grandchildren. Younger grand kiddos might have a hard time with it.

Here are the rules.

Pass out slips of papers to the players.  Each player writes the name of one person on one slip of paper.  (Depending on how large the group is, have each person write down 2-3 names.)  Fold the pieces of paper in half and put them in a bowl, box, or sack.  Divide the players into 2 teams.

There are 4 rounds of play. The first round is like the game Taboo.  Give the container with the slips of paper to one player on one team.  That person pulls out one slip of paper.  She can say anything she wants to get her team members to say the name of the person on the slip of paper.  (You can’t use any part of the name in your clues.)  Set a timer for one minute.  The person giving clues will try to get her team to guess as many names as they can in that one minute.  If there is a name that she is not familiar with, she can set it aside.  After the minute is up, that team is given a point for every name that is guessed.  Deduct one point for every name that was set aside.

Pass the container to one person on the other team.  Set the timer.  Have that person give her teammates clues to see how many names they can guess in one minute.

Play continues back and forth from team to team until all of the names have been guessed.

For round two, you play charades to get team members to guess the names of the people.  Since everybody has heard all of the names, it can be fairly easy to act out a person’s name.  One person will act out the names for her team to guess.  When a minute is up, they count their points and then a person on the other team takes a turn to act out the names of the people.  Continue until all of the names have been guessed.

For round three, the person giving clues can only say one word to get her team to guess the names.  Set the timer for one minute.  Count up points at the end of the minute and play goes to the next team.  Continue until all of the names have been guessed.

Round four is the hardest.  By far!  By this time, everybody should be really familiar with the names on the slips of paper.  For this round, the person giving the clues can only give clues by using facial expressions or motions of the head.

The end of round four is the end of the game — unless you want to start completely over with a new set of names. You can keep playing as long as your grandchildren seem to have interest. The winning team is the one with the most points.

Happy playing!

I have discovered a fun, fun activity — playing bocce (pronounced bah-chee) which is a form of lawn bowling.  You , Dear Reader, may be very familiar with this game but it was something new to us.

My husband found an inexpensive set online at Target and ordered it because it had free shipping.  (This was a big deal because those buggers are really heavy!!)  It came with a carrying case (similar to the one pictured here).  However, because the balls weigh so much and because the case isn’t very sturdy, I don’t think the case will last very long.

We took this game with us when went camping with friends in southern Utah over the Memorial Day weekend.  It was a hit.  In fact, I’ll have to tell you a little story about it in a moment.

Bocce is easy-peasy to play — or at least the way we played it.

It can be played with two people or two teams with two to four players per team.  First, determine the bounds of your ‘court’ which should be roughly 10 feet wide by 75 feet long.  You should keep the balls within this area.

Select one person/team to throw the small bocce ball.  Standing behind a predetermined foul line, that person throws the small ball onto the court.  One player from the same team will throw one bocce ball trying to get it as close as possible to the small ball.   One player from the other team throws one ball.  Play continues alternating between teams until all of the balls have been thrown.

The scoring team receives one point for each of their balls that is closer to the small ball than the closest ball of the other team.  If one of your ball is touching the small ball, it is ‘kissing’ and you get two points.  The ’round’ ends after all balls have been thrown and points have been awarded.  Continue playing more rounds until one team gets 15 points and wins the game.

Rules come with the set but they are rather complicated. Wikipedia has some simple directions how to play. You can also read these simplified directions on wikiHow.

Now the story I promised you.

We went camping with long-time friends.  Some of their children came camping with them. We played bocce on Friday afternoon and also a little bit before supper.  On Saturday as we talked about playing when we came back from hiking in a red sandstone slot canyon, one of the sons said, “I want Nina on my team.”  I guess he thought that my grandma-flabby arm was pretty good at accurately hefting those balls.

When we got back from our hike and were preparing to play, the son said, “I’ve got to go get ready for my hot date.”

Hot date?  Me, his hot date?  What a cute thing to say.

We played the game and our team won (thanks to my highly skilled playing).  Jokingly, I thanked the young man for a delightful date — and said that I felt relieved that I hadn’t felt any pressure to hold his hand or to worry about getting kissed as he walked me to my door.  We all laughed.

Then, it hit me.  This young man is not allowed to date until he is 16 years old.  He turns 16 in two week so this meant that I was his ‘first’ date!  I told him that this was a great story to tell his friends — and his children — that his first date was with a 56 year-old grandmother of 4.

Anyway, you might want to consider getting a set of bocce balls to play with your grandchildren.  This is an especially fun activity for older grandchildren with their advanced skill level and ability to strategize.

Go, bocce!

Will you have the opportunity to spend New Year’s Eve with your grandchildren?  This could be a great opportunity to have lots of FUN!!!

This is a time to break out of your ‘but-grandmothers-don’t-do-that-kind-of-thing’ attitude.  Be zany!  Be creative!  Be outta this world!

Lest you are at a loss for ideas of what to do, here are a few to jump start your thinking.  (And, make sure you have plenty of crepe paper streamers, balloons, noise makers, and confetti).  As always, adapt and modify your activities according to the ages of your grandchildren.

• For young grandchildren, move the clock ahead a couple of hours.  This way, they can celebrate the ringing in of the New Year but still get to bed before midnight (and before they are too tired and cranky).
• Get glow in the dark sticks to wave outside at midnight. (Fun for ANY age!)
• Have a dress up party with fun clothes, hats, tiaras, jewelry, cowboy boots, whatever.  Kids love to dress up and doing it only on Halloween just isn’t quite often enough for their dress-up souls.  Make sure you and Grandpa dress up, too!
• Have a pajama parade at midnight with your grandchildren wearing the new pajamas they got at Christmas.  (If they didn’t get new ones, maybe you could give them some and have all the more reason to parade!)  If you can, find fun masks for them to wear (like the picture above) as they parade around.
• Do the Bubble Wrap Stomp.  Buy sheets of bubble wrap used for packing.  At midnight, put on some lively music, put the bubble wrap on the floor, and stomp away.
• Make your own noise makers by putting dried beans or rice in cans or cardboard tubes or empty pop bottles and decorate the outside of the container.  Shake the containers wildly at midnight.
• Have a Dino-Mite Dance.  Make dinosaur masks for your little mites to wear while doing the Bunny Hop, the Hokey Pokey, the Funky Chicken, The Macarena, the Limbo (how low can Grandma go???).  To get copies of these songs, go to the iTunes store where they cost only 99 cents per song.  Burn them to a CD and then play the songs for your party.  (You can then pull out this CD and dance anytime during the year with your grandchildren!  Yes, Grandpa, even YOU can dance these types of dances with the grandkids!)
• For the granddaughters, have a jewelry making night.  Go to a local craft store and get beads and baubles for them to make bracelets, necklaces, and earrings.
• Have a cheese or chocolate fondue.

Here are some previous activities that I have written about that you could do:

• Play Fox and Geese. This could be a fun challenge if there isn’t much moonlight . . . Wear glow in the dark necklaces made out of the sticks! Then, come in and warm up with hot chocolate and donuts.
• Play Zilch.
• Play Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
• Play the Cup Rythm game.
• Play Panic (a card game).
• Play the Candy Bar game.

Last night we were spontaneous (yes, we are spontaneous on occasions).  We played card games with our neighbors.  They had two games that we hadn’t heard of before:  Category and Wizards.  Teen-aged grandchildren would enjoy playing these games.

What ever you do, may you have fun (and be safe) strengthening your relationship with your grandchildren while playing with them on New Year’s Eve!

Digi-Gram

Grandma Ideas