My boys are circling the Christmas tree again, begging, “Can’t we open one present?” They are understandably bored. We’ve been cooped up since Tuesday night, when the latest blizzard hit Colorado. We have a three and four foot snow drift covering our driveway. Even if I wanted to, I’m not sure we could leave the house. Besides, I don’t think anything is open today. Even the postal service isn’t working. Many of the streets are closed, including the highways. The temperatures have been much too cold to send them outside to play.
I don’t want to let them open presents early, so I came up with some ideas for making old toys seem new. Now, for the most part, I enjoy playing games with my children. Candy Land and Monopoly are exceptions. I’ve even been known to call Monopoly “Monotony”. I’ll play it though, with some twists.
Take your favorite (or least favorite) board game, and make up your own rules. Make up your own cards for the draw pile. Let everyone make up a few cards. Just write them on index cards and insert them into the stack of regular cards. Instead of getting $15 for winning a beauty contest, make everyone go back six spaces. Take $100 from each player. Make everyone pass one property to the player on their right. The first person to collect 10 yellow objects from around the house wins $500. Land on the railroad? Lucky you! You get a trip to the North pole (the kitchen) for hot chocolate all around. It’s outrageous, it’s different, it’s actually fun.
You can combine rules from other games too. Land on the same space, you get bumped to the start. Since the rules are a little crazy, you may want to change the goal of the game to the person with the most money at the end of a half hour or an hour. Have fun, get creative, and make your own game!