Board Games

There are few words that strike fear in the face of my spawn but "Total. Global. Annihilation." seems to do the trick. We are talking RISK. The all-time family-favorite game of ours. RISK holds such an enhalted place in our gaming that we even have a trophy of the world the winner receives upon winning the game. And some of us even dress for the game, yeah I know we are geeks, but it adds to the intimidation! Ok, so I am the only one that dresses but it still is annoying intimidating, especially with the chant of "Total. Global. Annihilation." said in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.

RISK comes in all sorts of varieties. We have Star Wars RISK, Lord of the Rings RISK, the original RISK game I played as a kid and about 3 other versions. Frodo recently asked, while toy shopping, if we really needed another version of RISK...but of course, you can never have too many.

The following are not in any sort of order, as the spawn like games that I don't and vice versa. They really love Apples to Apples. Me not so much since it is a game of opinion and not skill or luck. Ok, so I always lose at Apple to Apples which might explain my dislike for the game.

Another fan favorite is Scrabble or Super Scrabble or as we call it "Blouvers". Barbie couldn't think of a word one evening and proceeded to put her "B" in front of every word on the board and then asked if it was a word, blouvers was born. I think that was the same night she did the same thing with an "O" and tried Ofry, you know those right? Irish french fries.

We just got a new game from Barnes & Noble (on clearance for $5) called Luck of the Draw. The game is a combination of Pictionary and Apples to Apples and I highly recommend it. I always lose at it but it is still snort-laughing fun.

Cranium, Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly and Catch Phrase round out the list. There is a special place for Dungeons and Dragons but not everyone in the family plays that one. But special kudos goes to Buttercup for actually slaying monsters today. She is such a kind soul that even in D&D she thinks she can help folks and wants to 'talk' to every monster she encounters. I guess that would make her our own little D&D Oprah.

Card Games

We usually don't play many card games as the family is too big for a measly 52 cards. There is an occassional game of Hearts, Rummy 5000 or Uno but usually the card games are reserved for when we go camping. An old family tradition, that I am afraid has died, is Canasta. My grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles all played and always had round robin games during the times the family got together. I honestly don't think I have played a game of Canasta since Mom died which is pretty sad since I loved to play it.

As I stated above we always play cards while camping and we usually bring a board game or two. The best games we have played though are kids games like "Truth or Dare". Seeing your teenage son run around the camp ground singing "I'm a little teapot" because he doesn't want to take a truth from me, is just priceless. It is also his ringtone on my phone!

So what are your favorite games?