Top 5 We-Finished-Eating-and-Now-Have-Nothing-To-Say-To-Eachother Activities

for Family Holiday Gatherings

by: Ida Cuttler

1. Telephone Pictionary*

Someone writes a sentence, someone draws a picture, someone writes a sentence about what they think is going on in the picture. For example: the sentence is “a pickle wearing a sombrero”** and then someone draws this:

And the next person writes: “a hot dog in a hat.” The cycle of misunderstanding repeats itself around the table.

Pros: You get to go home with your own little booklet of fun and friendship! Everyone gets a party favor. A little souvenir. A trinket to remember the evening celebrations.

Cons: The set up is pretty cumbersome and time consuming as it involves gathering materials that are: All The Way In The Other Room. By the time all of the pieces of paper have been cut into uneven rectangles and the working pens and mechanical pencils have been dug out of the mess drawer, mostly everyone is already too sleepy, too drunk or too angry at themselves for eating a 7th slice of pie that they just don’t want to play.

2. Charades

It may not be the most creative, but don’t write off this family favorite. This one is a standard, and just like marshmallows on yams or the 2003 movie Pieces of April***: There’s nothing wrong with a classic.

Pros: Everyone in your family party is somewhat inebriated at this point and they need something simple that they can easily wrap their wine brain around. When the category is “movies” and people still do a windup camera motion with their left hand, it brings a nice nostalgia to the room.

Cons: Undoubtedly, one of the guessers (probably the most drunk) will repeat what they believe the person is acting out is, over and over and over at a loud volume.

“MAD MEN? MAD MEN! IT’S MAD MEN! MAD. MEN. OH, IT’S MAD MEN!”

And despite it clearly not being that, as evidenced by the person acting it out NOT tapping their nose twice (the universally accepted, but utterly goofy charades sign of ‘you got it’) they will continue to insist:

“IT’S GOTTA BE MAD MEN! THAT’S MAD MEN, RIGHT YOU GUYS? MAD MEEEEEEENNNNN!”

3. Dictionary

Someone finds a hard word in the dictionary that they think most people wouldn’t know the definition of, like: “Lassitude” or “Penurious” or “Trivet” and everyone writes down a made up definition of that word. Everyones answers are read to the group and the group tries to guess the correct definition.

Pros: Supplementing one’s adroitness in the province of the enlargement of one’s lexicon.

Cons: There’s always some asshat at the table who knows every word in the fucking dictionary and wants everyone to know it.

4. Fishbowl

If charades and the board game taboo had a baby, it would be this crazy mishmosh. This is a game where you split up into groups and write people or places or things or phrases or concepts on sheets of paper and put them all in one bowl. The first round you can say anything but the word on the page. The second round is charades. The third round you only say one word. You rack up points every round by each one your team guesses correctly.

Pro: Team building and familial reconciliation. A great way to stop hating your cousins is when you share several beautiful high fives and “yeah baby!!!!!” with the occasional: “Next time, we got it next time.”

Cons: No one can ever agree on how much time each round gets. There will be a moment of unnecessary and extreme aggression when someone forgets to watch the clock for the other teams round. Remove all fragile china.

5. Politics

Gun control, the upcoming election season, ISIS….what a fun awesome cool sweet game time.

Pro: Nothing don’t do it.

Cons: That person who doesn’t even know anyone here said a lot of weirdly racist stuff. Not even just racist. Weirdly racist.

So there you have it! Hope you try some of these this year. If none of these do it for you, there’s always the option of talking in great detail about the dog the entire night.