Family Game Night Lite

I’ve recently seen some ‘family game night’ commercials on TV. These ads suggest that you go out and buy some new board games and video games to play with the family once a week on family game night. I see nothing wrong with this idea. I loved playing board games as a kid (which, by the way, was before the advent of video games). But we must not forget the normal card and dice games, classics that have been played and enjoyed for years. Including some of these at family game night would add variety for a little extra cost.

When I think back to my childhood, I remember having fun playing the store-bought board games and card games that were popular at the time. But I also fondly remember when my family would go camping and we would sit at the picnic table at night playing Cribbage by the light of a kerosene lamp. My wife treasures the times when she was a child and she would go to her grandmother’s house and play Canasta all afternoon. And when I was in college, I loved playing Hearts and Oh Pshaw with my college friends.

How many card games do you remember playing as a child? War, and Memory, and Go Fish, and Crazy Eights. And you may have played Authors and Old Maid using cards printed specifically for those games, but both can be played using regular cards. And you may have played the Shut The Box dice game using a special box with numbered tiles on the hinges, but you can substitute playing cards for the tiles. Instead of closing the box, you turn the cards over. And you can play Yacht Craps, the free version of a similarly named craps game, using five dice and a readily available score sheet.

I think in this age of computers and video games, people tend to forget simpler times when playing Hearts could bring a group of people together for a night of conversation, snacks, and fun. It’s a bit ironic that Hearts is a game that most people can find in the Games folder on their computer. You can play against three computer opponents, but you can’t ask “How was your day?” and wait for a response from any of them.

Go to a bookstore or library and pick up a game rules book. Or search the Internet for ‘Card Game Rules’ or ‘Dice Game Rules’. Go over the rules of a card or dice game you like but haven’t played in a long time. Or learn the rules of an unknown game that sounds interesting. Then bring the game to family game night.

You can even try a ‘light family game night’ where you put a couple of decks of cards and half a dozen dice on the table and play nothing except classic card and dice games. Who knows? Perhaps the family requests a “light family game night” once a month.

Copyright (c) 2010 – Paul Hoemke. All rights reserved.