Hosting a Multigenerational Game Night

This past Sunday, we hosted a multigenerational game night and had so much fun!  I got some great ideas from this website: De Su Mama – Hosting Family Game Night

I put together an antipasto platter, never mind that I don’t have an actual platter. Sometimes guests arrive already hungry and if the main course isn’t quite ready yet, it’s nice to have something to munch on.  My mom is an appetizer queen and there is always some interesting snack ready when we go to her house.  I grew up understanding the importance of appetizers at a party. I used this recipe from, Vegetarian Times – Antipasto Platter for inspiration.

We also had nuts in the shells for snacking on. Nuts in the shells are such a fun autumn treat! I used a half-size cookie sheet for the serving tray and a ceramic bread loaf pan for the nut bowl. We are trying not to buy a lot of house stuff since we don’t know what our plans are after our lease here is up in January.

We are still settling into our rental house and opted to order pizza take-out from Round Table for the main course.

The kiddos and I made spider cookies for dessert. Here’s the link to the recipe: Chocolate Peanut Butter Spider Cookies

I wanted this dinner party to be easy-peasy and fun for everyone.  The attendees included our immediate family, my parents, my sister, and my sister’s brother-in-law and his wife (L.M. & A.M.).

I’m going to interrupt myself for a minute to tell you a little bit about L.M & A.M. One of the reasons that they are special to us is because immediately following our evacuation from the Camp Fire they jumped in right away to help us. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “He’s such a nice guy, he’d give you the shirt off his back.” That phrase describes them so well. This couple gave us half of the clothes in their closet. Not the clothes that they were already planning on donating to charity, the clothes that they were currently using, like their really good clothes. The shirts off their backs. Next, they let us do laundry at their house. Then they did our laundry for us at their house. I had bought the kiddos packs of socks from Target and poor L.M. spent so much time sorting and matching that load of about 48 miniature kid-sized socks! It is such a blessing to have such amazing friends!

Ok, now back to our game night, we decided to play Jenga and Uno for our games. We had 10 people with ages ranging from 5 to 71. Both of these games worked very well for our group size and age range. Neither of these games requires reading skills or much skill in strategy.  As long as everyone has mastered number recognition and some fine motor skills, they can participate! Another game that I think would work is Mexican train dominoes, we’re saving that for next time. We all had a lovely evening filled with silliness and laughter!

This was a successful dinner party because we made some fun new memories in our current rental house. (The RV is at the dealership right now getting maintenance and repairs).  Being in a new place that doesn’t really feel like home can be difficult. Making new memories in this new space makes it feel more like home in here!

We hope this post inspires you to host a family game night sometime soon.  Remember, it’s not about your square footage, your furniture or how nice your dishes are.  It’s about food, fun, family, and friends!

Here’s to making memories!