Nan writes:
So.... what games did you play at parties as kids, and most
importantly, did you like or dislike them?

The only game I remember playing at a birthday party as a kid was that
game where you were supposed to drop a clothespin into a milk
bottle. Hated that game. Hated it hated it hated it. But somebody must
have liked it because it got trotted out at every single birthday
party for years... Fortunately the world eventually ran out of milk
bottles.

I can remember other games at Girl Scout parties and such... things
like bobbing for apples at Halloween, or variations of Ring Toss or
Pin the Tail on the Donkey that matched the theme of the party (Pin
the Cottontail on the Bunny for an Easter party, for instance). Those
were mostly fun, but I always thought the best part of the party was
just messing around with the other kids. Our boys and their friends
seem to agree - we've always had a couple of games planned for at-home
parties in case we needed them, but mostly in those years between
preschool and preteens, the kids have just wanted to watch the
birthday boy open the presents, play with them, eat, and play some
more.

Kids here sometimes do Spin The Bottle, not as the goofy kissing game
I remember, but to decide who gets to give their present to the
birthday boy or girl next. And some parents do the fishing game at the
end of the party to hand out goody bags. Another activity, not quite a
game, is to let the kids "make" their own food. We've had good luck
with making mini-pizzas - an adult rolls out a small pizza crust for
each child (or gives each kid a pita bread if the adult in question is
feeling lazy ;-) and then lets the kids put on pizza sauce, cheese,
and whatever they'd like of maybe four or five toppings. Then these
are stuck in the oven to bake while the kids are engaged in another
activity - it helps a lot to have one adult to supervise the kids
while the other keeps an eye on the pizzas, especially if there are a
lot of kids and the pizzas need to be baked in several rounds. We put
them on baking parchment and write each child's name on the parchment
with a pencil, by the way - then serve them on paper plates with the
young pizza artists' names on the bottom.

- Cindy Kandolf, mom of Kenneth (14) and Robert (8)
****** Bærum, Norway
Bilingual Families Web Page:
http://www.nethelp.no/cindy/biling-fam.html