Playing games on rainy days is fun and can bring families closer together. Find out which games my family and I chose to play on a rainy day.
It has been a wet fall here in London, Ontario. My kids – and I, when I can join them – run to the park as soon as the sun peaks out. But those rainy days… ugh! They are long, slow, cold, dreary, and daily. Sitting in front of the TV, pretending we are somewhere else, sounds like a good idea on paper. Unfortunately, these same miserable rainy days also give me migraines. Sitting in front of a computer for too many hours doesn’t help my head much either. So, I spend family fun time playing table top games instead. Read on to see our games for a rainy day…
Mexican Train Dominoes
It all started just over a week ago. The air pressure was changing, I was working on a very long PowerPoint presentation and I couldn’t imagine staring at a screen for another second. So, I pulled out Mexican Train Dominoes and so the games on a rainy day began. To my surprise, the kids were thrilled. In fact, they have requested games over TV every night since then!
The object of Mexican Train Dominoes is to get rid of all your tiles first and have the lowest score. We started to give prizes for the person with the most zeros on their score card.
Uno
Jon chose Uno. We always play the best two out of three games. The family fun part is that, the only way to lose is if you can’t finish your deck. Quite often we have a first, second, and third winner with the occasional loser. Our table is also set up well for Jon’s small hands. It has grooves where the leaves fold down. His cards fit perfectly in the grooves.
The object of Uno is to get rid of all your cards first. Pick up wars are a lot of fun and make it harder for others to win.
Chicken Soup for the Family Soul
Dominik chose a game we haven’t played in a long time called Chicken Soup for the Family Soul. We used to play this game with our summer exchange students as a way to get to know each other. It was a great icebreaker, but we didn’t tell our most embarrassing or saddest moments because we were with strangers. However, this time was different. It was just us, so we answered all the questions very honestly. We laughed, we cried, we hugged, and we had a blast.
Tell stories and see how much you know about your family. The first to collect 8 cards wins.
The Game of Life
Yesterday, we played The Game of Life. I feel that this game needs a serious update. After all, they still use blue pegs for boys and pink pegs for girls. Also, everyone has to get married and you are forced to have children when you land on baby space. I enjoy the game so, to reconcile myself with the above, I have proclaimed that the pegs are gender neutral and I can be a blue girl, a pink boy, or whatever I want to be, we don’t have to get married and we can adopt children when we land on a space… if we want to. It is a great game to discuss borrowing habits since you can borrow from the bank.
The person who retires with the most money wins.
I wonder which games we will play tonight?
So many choices and that’s not even all of our games! It looks like Lilly, the cat, wants to play Canadian Monopoly.
So many choices and that’s not even all of our games! It looks like Lilly, the cat, wants to play Canadian Monopoly.
Main photo: cloud with rain by Valentin Müller , other photos: by Klarissa
NOTE FROM THE HEAD EMPRESS: Apologies to you all and especially to Klarissa. I’ve been ridiculously busy (and also sick last week too) and I’ve been sitting on this post. So when she says “last week it was raining” it was probably 2-3 weeks ago that she wrote this. I bet it’s snowing in her neighbourhood by now! Please forgive me!
Smooches Lovelies!
