Games for a family gathering

Our fam fav was always Pinochle but its hard unless everyone already knows how to play.  These days its either Rummikube or Pay Me which is a variation of Gin but a little more interesting for the casual card player.

Charades is good too.  I know it may seem a little dorky, but it really is fun.  Some of the best laughs are had while people try to act stuff out.  It will force you out of your comfort zone, which is good to loosen things up a little.

My Mom and I always have a cookie swap at Christmas and we play games there.  One of the favorites that we have played year after year is "I've never" (we did a variation last year of the opposite - I will explain) 

Anyway - you get little cups...like dixie cups....and you can use anything like skittles, sweet tarts or something - that has a lot of pieces and put them in the cup.  Mom and I use buttons.  You have to have at least the same number of tokens in your cup as there are people playing the game.   So you start with one person and they think of something that they have never done....for example....

I have never gotten a speeding ticket.

It can be anything that you have not done that you think maybe other people have done.  (usually the unmarried, no children people get a lot of tokens by just saying they have never been married) Give people a minute to think about it - some ones that people have said - never been camping, never worn cowboy boots, never gotten a root canal, never eaten a hamburger (though I found that one hard to believe)...

so for example...if you HAVE gotten a speeding ticket, you have to take one of your tokens out of your cup and put it in their cup. 

Then it goes to the next person in the group...and so on.  You can decide before the game how many times around you want to go (if it is a lot of people, just do once or twice) around the group.  The person with the most tokens in their cup wins. 

I like this game because you get to know odd and interesting information about people you thought you kinda knew. 

One thing I should mention or suggest - depending on the crowd...people (for some reason) can get to the gutter really quickly - so if you don't want the game to go to that direction, make sure you say at the beginning that the rules are to not 'reverse' reveal something about someone that might embarrass people. (aunt Sue might say - "I have never had an affair"

It is fun.  If you have questions let me know.

Kelly

Beer pong, quarters, flip cup, dominoes, cards.

Lawn darts.  Just don't volunteer to be the goalie.