Game Night

A week ago, Friday, was Emma’s school’s Fun Fair, a horror of a fund raiser that most parents of school age children are familiar with.  Fun Fair is loud, busy, and horribly Earth-unfriendly, with kids playing rather stupid games for tokens which they can trade later for plastic junk that will be thrown out in a month.  Rob and I hate it for many reasons, but probably the primary reason is that it involves a loud, chaotic, environment.  We both find that environment very stressful, and I suppose it’s not a surprise that Emma finds it stressful too.  It’s like being at one of those Wisconsin Dells water parks –an environment we all avoid.

This year, we thought that Emma was old enough for us to give her a choice:  attending Fun Fair, or taking that evening to have a family game night, where we ordered pizza, got her favorite dessert, and played games together during the hours of the Fun Fair.  She chose a family game night.

Then came her week of illness, beginning by staying home from school the day of Fun Fair, and being sick all of the next week (her spring break week).  Because she was so sick on that Friday, we put game night off until last night.

We played Yatzee, Scategories (a new game for us, and MUCH harder than I anticipated), Pictionary, Catch-Phrase (the cooking category is the only one Emma is familiar enough with to really participate in) and Clue.  All in all it was a very successful evening.  So successful we’ve decided we should have a slightly shorter version of game night once a month.