There's nothing like pulling out your stash of
board games to instantaneously take you back to that childhood sleepover, epic
cottage rained-out weekend, or frozen winter night spent with your best of
friends. I should confess that I grew up as a board game fiend... my
friends and I played each day during our limited lunchtime in high school...
and I may or may not have gotten "kicked out" of our games club after
being a little too loud and aggressive during a game of Pictionary. True
(and unfortunate) story!
My friends and I had been yearning for another great games night, when
Lady Luck (or in this case Mattel) bestowed upon us a box filled with games and
the perfect occasion to get us together to compete against one another once
again. The kit was personalized according to my Gameology sign, the Wittian
(see the here for
details and to learn your own Gameology sign!).
I came
home one evening to find this personalized beauty from Mattel waiting for
me. Inside was a collection of games,
colored party favors, and instructions to throw my own Mattel Game On!
Party. And then the Martha Stewart
party-planning wheels inside my head began to turn…
I created
a Facebook event and sent out the invites to the girls, told them to start
training, and carefully planned my menu.
With a growing cookbook library and Pinterest easily on-hand for
inspiration, it took a while to pick the favorites - but if there’s one thing I
know, it’s that my friends enjoy their cheeses.
With G&Ts in hand, cocktail plates full of cheesy goodness, and
preliminary catch-up conversations taken care of, we started the night with Mad Gab (my
personal favorite). The game that tells
players “it’s not what you say, it’s what you hear,” it’s the game that elicits
the greatest laughs and most aggressive hand-gesturing. It also quickly reveals the thought-processes
and streams of consciousness that each friend follows…. Beware the danger of
these new insights. In the end, no one
could match my 9 phrases in 2 minutes (total Wittian, right here!), but I was
starting to worry as one of my friends started getting phrase after phrase
correct. Check out the Game On!
Facebook page for Mad Gab Monday posts to test your own skills.
UNO is the
classic favorite, played at virtually every game night I’ve been to. It’s easy to learn, easy to play, and
incredibly satisfying to catch your friends forgetting to say UNO! when they
were oh-so-close to winning (sorry, Andrea!).
Although we were starting to fade after many rounds of games, too many
rounds of G&Ts, and oodles of gabbing breaks, we were determined to finish
the night with Apples to
Apples. Each player is dealt a round of
cards with things like Frank Lloyd Wright, Elvis, Tattoos, and other nouns or
proper nouns. One player gets a card with an adjective, which everyone else has
to match with a noun card, facedown. The
player with the descriptive card reads through the pile of items to pick the
one that best matches. The key to this
game is playing to the person with the descriptive card. While Jenn may always pick the most
hilariously ironic or inappropriate combination, I go for the classic (Timeless
and Frank Sinatra was my final chosen pair -
kudos to Lauren for that one).
Reading all of the potential pairs out-loud can be a riot, especially
after a few rounds of drinks.
In the end, one grand winner of the night walked away with her own mini
Ladies Game Night kit – a bottle of gin, a lime, a Phase
10 Dice Game, and a cocktail pitcher (way to go
Katherine!).
We laughed loudly, enjoyed our fair share of cocktails, got aggressively
competitive during tight rounds, and ended the night promising to make Ladies
Game Night a regular event.
Thanks to those that came out and to Mattel for the games!
xoxo,
