Dinner reservations on February 14 are a nightmare. Every restaurant is packed, the menu is “special” (read: pricey), and you spend half the night waiting for the check. So my husband and I started staying in. A few years ago, we swapped the fancy dinner for takeout and a stack of Valentine’s party games for…
Every February, someone in my friend group says, “We should do something for Valentine’s Day,” and then nobody plans a thing. So last year I did. I threw a game night, and it turned out to be the best party we had all winter. The trick is picking Valentine’s party games for adults that are…
Valentine’s Day class parties move fast. You get maybe 45 minutes, 24 kids on a sugar high, and one bag of conversation hearts standing between you and total chaos. That’s why I keep a stash of Valentine’s games for kids ready to go every February. Most of them use paper cups, dice, and candy from…
Kids will search the whole house for a paper heart if you call it a hunt. I learned that the year my daughter forgot about her Valentine’s candy because she was too busy chasing clues. A Valentine’s scavenger hunt for kids takes about 15 minutes to set up, and it can fill a whole afternoon….
By mid-January, everyone in my house has cabin fever. The kids have built every blanket fort possible, and I’ve heard “I’m bored” more times than I can count. That’s when a winter scavenger hunt for kids saves the day. On nice days, I bundle everyone up and send them outside to hunt for pinecones, animal…
New Year’s Eve with kids is a marathon. Everyone’s wired at 7 p.m., cranky by 9, and somehow there are still three hours until the ball drops. A New Year’s Eve scavenger hunt fixes the slow middle of the night. Hide a few clues, hand out a list, and the countdown suddenly feels a lot…
The best Friendsgiving I ever hosted had a half-raw turkey and three pans of stuffing. Nobody cared, because we played games until 1 a.m. Good food gets people in the door. But Friendsgiving games for adults are what turn a potluck into a night your friends talk about until next November. The right game gets…
My kids can list everything they want for Christmas by October 1. But ask them what they’re thankful for, and I get a shrug and “um, my iPad?” That’s why I started doing simple gratitude activities for kids every November. Nothing fancy. A craft here, a kind deed there, a jar of notes on the…
I used to scribble charades words on torn-up napkins every Thanksgiving. Half of them were unreadable by the third round, and one ended up in the gravy. Now I print a real deck. Printable Thanksgiving charades cards take about 20 minutes to make, look great on the table, and last for years if you laminate…
Every Thanksgiving hits the same wall around 4 p.m. Dinner’s done, the pie’s half gone, and the whole family is drifting toward a nap on the couch. That’s when I pull out the Thanksgiving charades cards. Nobody has to buy anything or learn new rules, and watching Grandpa act out “burnt turkey” never gets old….