Family Game Night

I grew up in a home where the television was on all the time.  It was our “quality family time” all sitting around watching TV together.  Every night.  While it didn’t allow for any conversation, at least we were all focused on the same thing.

In our house these days, though, it’s not at all like that.  I’m too cheap to pay for cable so we don’t have TV reception.  We do all sit together in the living room on occasion, however, but it looks much different than family time when I was a kid.

My husband sits in the recliner holding his i-pad with headphones on, watching a movie via Netflix.  Kaleb curls up on the couch reading an electronic book on his Nook.  I sit with my MacBook emailing or making digital photo books.  We are all in our own little worlds and the only thing we share is the air we breathe.

We used to have Family Movie Nights when Kaleb was younger.  We’d order pizza and rent the latest G rated movie.  Now that he’s moved beyond G ratings, we can never agree on anything we all would like to watch together, so that tradition has nearly died out.

The one family tradition that still stands, however, is Family Game Night.  It’s been a weekend night tradition at our house for over a decade.  When we can, we slip it into a mid-week night as well, as we actually enjoy being focused on the same thing at the same time.  Or maybe we just enjoy beating each other.

The rule is that whoever won the last Family Game Night gets to pick which game we start off with the next time.  Kaleb’s favorite game is Settlers of Catan, but that is like the Monopoly of my day, and can take hours to play, so unless we start early, it’s not an option.

Our neighbor, Joan, used to come over in the fall and winter on Saturday nights to have a bowl of soup and play Cribbage with us.  She’d partner up with Kaleb and it was a rare evening they didn’t beat the pants off Kory and I.  In my book, getting together to play games with neighbors is one of the best ways to spend an evening.

Our other neighbors, the Torseths, taught us how to play Mexican Train as well as the card game Golf, which is always a hit on holidays when we have a house full of people and have hours to spend together after dinner.  Golf is a game wrapped in the element of surprise and chance and each play becomes a mini-drama as everyone hangs in the balance waiting for the turn of the cards.  It’s best played with folks who like a little drama.

I lean a bit toward the dramatic each time I win any game, as I stand up, arms outstretched and begin singing Queens’ rendition of “We are the champions” only, of course, I alter the words so that everyone knows it is “I” and I alone that is the champion, and they are all the losers.  I think this might be why my son has developed a very competitive spirit.  Not sure, but perhaps that’s it.  He hates to see me win.