This last Monday my brother and his family came to town for a few days from their home in the Midwest. They were dropping off their daughter at the MTC for her mission in California. While they were here, they organized a short get-together of my extended family at another brother's house. There were about 30 of us there which is a little less than half of our full number.
I'm actually not sure how many there are these days so let me count: 52 grandchildren, 5 great-grandchildren, 5 in-law grandchildren, 11 children, 8 spouses, and 2 parents=82. OK, there's more of us than I realized. We sang a few songs, had a short lesson, played a big group game, and then had donuts for treats.
Our family's contribution was the game. It's a little hard to come up with a game for 30 people of all ages in a confined space. What we came up with was "The Name Game". The game works like this:
You pick any name and write it down on a piece of paper. Some of the names picked were: Ken Jennings, Beethoven, Chester A. Arthur, Chip, and Ladybug. Then everyone hands in their names to one person (who acts as the moderator) who reads all the names one by one two times and no more.
After the names are read, the youngest person goes first by asking someone what they think their name is by guessing a name from the list. If they guess incorrectly then the person who got asked gets to ask someone. My dad loves Beethoven so someone asked him pretty early on if he was Beethoven. He said yes, so he joined the person who asked him correctly and became part of their team. Let's say the person who asked him was named Scott. Now Scott gets to go again and ask someone else. If he guesses correctly, then his team grows more. But if someone guesses Scott's name then everyone on Scott's team joins the team of the person who guessed. Pretty soon you're down to a few large teams and the last one whose name isn't guessed wins.
This game works well with a medium-sized group and our group was on the large side. So the way we adjusted was to have everyone find a partner. That way we had half the number of names to remember. One of the tricks to this game is remembering the names and remembering who has been asked what name. The more people there are, the harder it is.
In the end, my son and his wife won because they had picked a name that some of us didn't recognize and we all forgot about it until the end. It was Andy Dwyer from the Parks and Rec TV show. So there's the secret--pick an obscure name that most people don't remember.
I think everyone had fun. It was a challenge because it was a school night and lots of people had activities going on. But I'm glad we could do it.
I'm actually not sure how many there are these days so let me count: 52 grandchildren, 5 great-grandchildren, 5 in-law grandchildren, 11 children, 8 spouses, and 2 parents=82. OK, there's more of us than I realized. We sang a few songs, had a short lesson, played a big group game, and then had donuts for treats.
Our family's contribution was the game. It's a little hard to come up with a game for 30 people of all ages in a confined space. What we came up with was "The Name Game". The game works like this:
You pick any name and write it down on a piece of paper. Some of the names picked were: Ken Jennings, Beethoven, Chester A. Arthur, Chip, and Ladybug. Then everyone hands in their names to one person (who acts as the moderator) who reads all the names one by one two times and no more.
After the names are read, the youngest person goes first by asking someone what they think their name is by guessing a name from the list. If they guess incorrectly then the person who got asked gets to ask someone. My dad loves Beethoven so someone asked him pretty early on if he was Beethoven. He said yes, so he joined the person who asked him correctly and became part of their team. Let's say the person who asked him was named Scott. Now Scott gets to go again and ask someone else. If he guesses correctly, then his team grows more. But if someone guesses Scott's name then everyone on Scott's team joins the team of the person who guessed. Pretty soon you're down to a few large teams and the last one whose name isn't guessed wins.
This game works well with a medium-sized group and our group was on the large side. So the way we adjusted was to have everyone find a partner. That way we had half the number of names to remember. One of the tricks to this game is remembering the names and remembering who has been asked what name. The more people there are, the harder it is.
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| The winners |
In the end, my son and his wife won because they had picked a name that some of us didn't recognize and we all forgot about it until the end. It was Andy Dwyer from the Parks and Rec TV show. So there's the secret--pick an obscure name that most people don't remember.
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| My newest, very cute grandchild |
I think everyone had fun. It was a challenge because it was a school night and lots of people had activities going on. But I'm glad we could do it.
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