Rhys's Twelve Days of Christmas--Day 10

So the world didn't end yesterday? Rats. Now I'll have to clean the bathroom and do the laundry.

One aspect of Christmas that I remember fondly was the playing of family games. Charades was always a favorite. I'm not talking about the watered down version that we play here. We used to produce a wholw little play. We'd take a multi-syllable word and then act out complete scenes to explain. Then a scene that included the whole word. For example Dandylion. One scene with a person acting in dandyfied fashion, a scene in the zoo or jungle with a lion and then someone blowing the seeds away. We had a dress-up trunk full of costumes that we used.

Another great game if you had a big enough house was sardines. It's like hide and seek but with a twist. One person hides, everyone seeks. The first person to find him joins him. More and more people cram in until either the closet or space under the bed won't hold any more or one person is left.

We also played games like passing the parcel or hot potato or even musical chairs, and after meals more sedate word games like I Went to Market. One person starts I went to market and I bought an apple. Next I went to market and I bought an apple and a ball. Next an apple a ball and a cat etc through the alphabet. A person who forgets is out.

I've a good selection of these in the compendium at the back of my new book, The Twelve Clues of Christmas.
 Does your family play any special games?