Relaxing With Family

Christmas-Day-2
Just After Christmas Dinner With My Nana And Granddad

 

I love spending time with my family at Christmas, when we are all together it is a fabulous time to relax and chill out.  My eldest brother Matt loves board games and when we are all home he gets out his favourites games and we all sit and play them together.

Balderdash

On Christmas day my Nana and Grandad came over for lunch and after we had eaten we all had a game of “Balderdash”. It was hilarious, in the game a question is asked from a category either: Events, Words, Laws, Initials or People and you have to write down your own explanation of the answer, for example if the category was a “person” you would write down what you believe they were famous for.  The person whose turn it is to read the question writes down the correct answer from the back of the card on their own slip of paper and then gathers in everyone else’s answers, the aim is to write something that the others will think is correct because you get points for that.  You gain points if you guess correctly and a point for every person who incorrectly chooses the answer that you wrote down.  This can lead to some really interesting answers with plenty of bluffing and game play.

Articulate

Another favourite of ours is “Articulate”, we play this in teams of two and each turn one couple has to act out or explain a word given on a card.  For each correctly guessed answer the team moves forward place.  It helps if you are each other’s wavelength for this game as then the answer can come quite quickly and you play with a timer.  Although there are some tricky ones in the pack.

Catan

Matt really enjoys strategy games and last year he got us playing “Catan” after I bought it for his birthday.  Thomas bought him an expansion pack for the game this Christmas and we have been trying to get our heads around the new rules so we have a better chance of beating him.  The game involves trying to outwit the other players to build up your assets expand your settlements and cities.  The winner is the one who is the first to acquire 15 assets.

Playing-Catan
Setting Up The Board For a Game Of Catan

Last night Matt’s friend Ali came over to join us and as she knows what he is like with games she brought with her a game called “Categorically Speaking”.   Each round of the game you select four subject cards e.g. Football players, things that are square, tennis players, movie stars and four letter cards e.g. A, Y, N, B.  Then in the time it takes for an egg timer to empty you have to write down an item/object/person for each letter and each category. So you have a possible 16 points every go and you can play as many rounds as you have time for.  Sometimes your mind just goes blank and you kick yourself when the answers are read out.  You score a point for each correct answer, but nothing if two or more of you get the same answer.  I would definitely recommend access to an iPad or Tablet to check some of the answers as they can sometimes be very questionable.

I could go on for hours as we do play so many but one we always come back to is “Scrabble” it is just a shame that it is only for four players as it usually means one of us sits out a round.

First-Snow-ith-My-Brothers
The First Snow Of Christmas ( Boxing Day )

I hope that this has given you a taste of what we get up to whilst relaxing, especially as our weather can be very unpredictable.  I would love to know what you do over the holiday season, any board games you could recommend and if you have any family traditions that are important to you?

HoatherFamily
Happy New Year From All Of The Hoather Family

 

65 thoughts on “Relaxing With Family”

  1. These games sound like fun! I love Scrabble but don’t remember the last time I played. The last game I played was a game from the movie, Frozen, with my five-year-old granddaughter. She loved it because she won all four games! Chuckle. It was a boring game but as long as she had fun so did I!

    Nice to spend time with family relaxing and having fun together – great bonding! Wishing you a lovely New Year! Blessings & hugs. xo

    Reply

      1. I love that song even thought it has been over used a lot. I would love to hear you sing it. You would do a beautiful rendition! xo

  2. Relaxation is great. Relaxation with family is the best. Your games sound fantastic. Especially “Balderdash”. Since I am often told that I have “the gift of gab” I think that would be my favorite. We play Scrabble as well. Also Monopoly and Yahtzee. Board games are considered pre-historic any more but they are great fun and you don’t need any electricity to play. Sounds as if you guys had a good Christmas. I wish you all a Happy New Year.

    Reply

    1. Most of our friends love our board games, Matt invents his own he could probably make a living from it 😀. Mum pulls the plug after too much XBox lol, Tom’s hooked on Fifa15.
      Best wishes and a Happy New Year to you,
      Charlotte

      Reply

  3. Back in the days when I was a married lady, we always played Trivial Pursuit or Monopoly with the family. This tradition carried on for years later until my Mother passed. Nowadays we are creating ‘new’ traditions and this year we played Christmas Trivia, which was rather enlightening and a lot of fun, especially since it was so casual. Thank you for sharing your excellent time and may the New Year bring you every joy!

    Reply

    1. We loved Trivial Pursuit too but Matt got too good he’s got like a photograph memory 😀. Hope the new year brings you good health and happiness too Annette.
      Best wishes
      Charlotte

      Reply

  9. We used to play a few board games but haven’t for some years now probably because we don’t often all get together at the same time. You all look as though you have had a lovely time with your family. Have a very happy new year, Charlotte.

    Reply

  11. Balderdash is my favorite game , it’s soooo much fun , my son at ten loved it , so neat to use imaginary things and words , it’s the BEST for group !! ( group is a greek soup ) haha Charlotte , Health & Happy 2015 dear xx

    Reply

    1. Thank you it’s good if there is a big group of you some of the answers we came up with were hilarious. I’ll be home in Glasgow at the end of the week ready for an early start to the new term, hope the snow stays away for the journey.
      Best wishes to you for 2015,
      Charlotte

      Reply

  16. Our family loves Scattergories, which is almost identical to “Categorically Speaking,” except there are more categories and only one letter for each round. I like Trivial Pursuit, too, since you have to know all the answers about miniscule details of such subjects as Sport, Science, Literature, Film, etc. My brother gets all the sports ones, I know obscure facts about history, and nobody knows anything about modern movies! (I think we own three films made after the 1960s–oh, and the 1995 BBC television series of Pride and Prejudice on DVD, too. My sister got me that for my last birthday.)

    I liked the sound of some the games you mentioned that I had not heard of before, especially Catan. It’s funny; this morning I was doing the balance sheet for the little chocolate business my sister and I do at the local markets, so the word “asset” has a decidedly familiar ring to it! Not that we could build cities out of what we earn . . . but the game sounds fun. We enjoy games a lot in our family too–my brother got this three-D tic-tac-toe game for Christmas, called Noughts and Crosses, which is much more difficult (and fun) than ordinary tic-tac-toe! I beat him once so far.

    Happy New Year!

    Cate

    Reply

    1. Such good fun Cate to take them on at their favourite game and win lol 😀. I can recommend Catan I think you’ll all enjoy it.
      Do you make strawberries dipped in Chocolate for your stall? I loved buying cones with fresh dipped strawberry in Paris, they use the most amazing chocolate over there.
      Best wishes
      Charlotte

      Reply

  19. I’d so be fun at some of that you list, but often unless the game’s there it’d also be a beautiful moment of an older game… A$$hole which oddly enough is apparently the very same thing as Revolution in the Please Teacher Searies anime. I plotted and executed sweetest revenge the last time I lost huge at A$$hole the cardgame also known as balderdash or by serving up straight shots of peychoud Bitters. with just a dot of blueberry juice so ice, white; blueberry, blue; peychoud bitters or new orleans lousianna bitters red… “patriotism is the last refuge of a Scoundrel! – Patrick Henry (give me liberty or give me death, founding father america…usa to you, Patrick Henry) I cant win bull doop without cheating and plying everyone with liquor. same way I cant beat good chess players without destroying their concentration playing forever loop “fireing up the sunset gun” by Animal Logic or making you laugh with extreme effort faces for the armwrestle along with the usual goose-necking…. 😉 horrible cheater I’m afraid.

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  23. I remember playing board games with you all when you were tinies and miss it all. I was playing Guess Who with Ollie over Christmas and was soundly beaten by him! I need more practice 😃 have a safe journey back to Glasgow and a fantastic 2015 xxx

    Reply

    1. I remember playing Guess Who 😊. I think we had every type of Uno going lol. You’d have loved Ali’s game it was like the categories game we played but with cards and a timer.
      Best wishes
      Charlotte

      Reply

  24. What a wonderful and quality time you had with your family, Charlotte, over Christmas. 🙂 Interesting post. Best wishes to you and family for the New Year and have a happy holiday! 🙂 Iris

    Reply

    1. We play Risk at my Nana’s house great game. Glad to hear you had fun too. Started reading Bordeline 😊 I keep getting interrupted, I loved the bookmarker with names (great idea) enjoying getting to know the characters.
      Best wishes
      Charlotte

      Reply

  28. Sounds like fun 🙂 I just spent new years eve playing board games with my friends: Tension, Cranium, Extreme Charades (not actually a board game) and Disney Trivial Persuit. I’m just about to go downstairs and play Monopoly with my aunt and family… *happy sigh*.

    Reply

    1. Thanks for your comment Jenny, extreme charades sounds interesting. My brother has such a fantastic memory I hate playing Disney trivial pursuit with him so hard to beat him. Hope you had a fab time.
      Best wishes
      Charlotte

      Reply

  30. You would love playing games with my family. One of our newer favorites is Wise and Otherwise, which has a somewhat similar premise to Balderdash, except you have to complete obscure sayings from all over the world. We’ve come up with some hilarious stuff.
    My parents and I love Scrabble too (my mom is slightly annoyed by the fact that I can now beat her in both languages though). 😉
    My dad and sisters love Risk, though I’ve never had any interest in playing. That said, I do get a kick out of their running commentary.

    Reply

    1. Hi Stephanie, hope you had a lovely Christmas. Not heard of Wise and Otherwise sounds great. I never thought of a French version of Scrabble that would be a proper challenge 😳. You’d all enjoy Catan. It seems so long ago now lots to do this month.
      Best wishes
      Charlotte

      Reply

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