I think I’ve said here before my husband’s family is a complete shit show. My father-in-law has cancer and he’s sick so things are going down the tubes even more rapidly than normal this year. This Christmas is going to be terrible. Are there any activities traditions or games you guys play with your family that you don’t get along with the kind of pass the time? Last year we decorated gingerbread houses that went pretty well.

Have some political and religious discussions. It should go swimmingly.

Sorry about your father-in-law. Best to him.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

They started making these "escape the room" type games for your house... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KH1EIAY/re ... UTF8&psc=1

I bought one but haven't played it yet, but have done a couple of them in real life. Definitely can distract you for an hour or two. And everyone is on the same team so there's no hard feelings in winning or losing.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

Making ornaments has always been fun.

But that's in the build-up, the days before. Our Christmas Eves are great but Christmases--just after opening presents--are a bit of a letdown because no one does much in our family. Our little guy has autism, so that rules out some things (going to a movie, for example).

Make sure you start this off with large quantities of whiskey.

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usually the younger ones these days bring videogames or devices and just tune out.

try doing that. just stare into it and when they ask you to get off it say it's work related.

Everything is better with large quantities of whisky, except for today’s Bear game.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

Apples to Apples works for us.
It's Cards against humanity that children can play.

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My husband has made the request we don't drink a lot or have much available. His mom has not done well with her booze the last few times. In vino veritas, mon Dieu!


My kids love apples to apples. Good one. Ornaments...good...how does it work? Supplies etc?


I also thought about seeing if I could find a charity thing or making the knot blankets for cancer patients.

This would be great if it works. I might give this one a try.

Ornaments: You can buy kits. The coolest ones are the eggs, where you cut a little hole in the eggs, blow out the stuff inside, sanitize it and let it dry, then dress it up. When my kids were little, making ornaments with photos of them was fun, too. There are kits at Michael's you can get.

OMG...so I'm watching the video and Mr. Spaulding says what are you watching. I says a video on how to make an ornament from an egg. He says huh we had that when I was a kid. He got this weird look and I said what? no good? He said all I remember it was a bunch of ornaments we had to be "really careful" with. We got into trouble if we cracked one. Not a good time.

My kids and I haven't broken one yet, and our clumsiness is legendary. What's more, we have seventeen people in a three bedroom house and I think we might have lost one over all the years we grew up (all my brothers and sisters made 'em).

Why don’t you people just tell your family to go elsewhere? Problem solved.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

If it goes wrong this year it might be an option for next year. This year I have to host and have to give it the old college try.

The Christmas before we got married I worked with my wife at the animal shelter. Might of been best Christmas we’ve had as a couple (either that or the 3 foot snow in Montana when we shoveled the driveway, drank Sambuca and eat bacon wrapped scallops with the neighbors as the dogs and neighbor kids played.


Now I just pray we don’t have to drive 5 hours.

The only thing I have learned over the years when my parents are hosting the big family dinner is to make a brisket for it. Everyone loves it and I have to cook it out by the shed. It needs constant attention or so I say and thus I can escape the festivities as many times and for as long as I like.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

Get a puzzle or two. Works wonders.

The focus on the puzzle limits conversation and keeps people occupied.

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You know me like that.

Apples to Apples is a good one for all ages. Another one would be to make your own Christmas Charades game.

Order the Andy Griffith Christmas episode on Amazon. Its short and sweet, and lifts up everybody's spirit without relying on love or family as the main theme. That would definitely keep everybody focused and entertained for 30 minutes.

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That's actually a pretty good one. Here is a 24000 piece one Spaulding....

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Yeah, but now they are trapped. Poor planning.

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

True, though the deep neuroses will emerge from those that harbor them.

My family does a lot of singing on the holidays. We have many good singers. I am not one of them. My mom was asked by more than one person on various occasions if she was a professional singer. She always just laughed as if they were being ridiculous. But when she was alive she and my uncle (her brother) could harmonize quite impressively. There's something about family harmonies. And one of my younger cousins actually is a professional singer.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

She's not famous yet. It wouldn't surprise me if she got there, but she'll need some luck. There are thousands of other cute girls with great voices living in New York and waiting tables.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

My off-the-boat Dad and his siblings and cousins here could sit in the living room and round-robin Irish songs pretty well. It ramped up considerably when the Old Country Irish would visit.

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

My aunt is first generation Irish-American and she and most of her friends are really into being Irish, always hanging out at the Heritage Center. She doesn't sing but my Uncle has pretty much become Irish from being married to her all these years so we have plenty of Irish influence in our sing-alongs. My mom used to roll her eyes at some of the Irish stuff. Most of my cousins were Irish dancers and when they were younger my mom liked to hum a reel and make them take the floor to dance.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I usually make a holiday trivia type game. It's like the bar trivia. Two rounds three questions each. A song in-between, and a final question with a point wager. People seem to get into it.

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

His mom always told him he should have found a nice polish girl

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

If I went to a holiday party and was given some kind of craft to do I would probably lose it on the host.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.