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I've never been one for party games. Certainly not games at adult parties, those games of teams and self-aggrandizement and raucous shouts—games like charades. I'm not good at them and therefore I don't like them. Or vice versa.
Luckily, the people I associate with don't propose party games. Instead, we just eat and eat and drink wine and talk.
But children's parties? Again, many of the games are horrible, involving competition (musical chairs) or violence (pinatas). But there are two games I remember with great enthusiasm. The first is Chinese telephone, which goes by many names. A declarative sentence is secretly devised by an adult, who whispers it into the ear of one child, who whispers it to the next, and that one to the next, and so on around the circle until everyone has heard and repeated the sentence, which is then spoken aloud. To the shock of all, the sentence has changed radically. It's a good lesson (or it should be) about the unreliability of oral communication. The lesson doesn't usually sink in, however, as the cake and ice cream distract everyone from the moral lesson.
The other game I love is "Button, Button", a game of visual deception. The children sit in a circle. One child is given a button, and she goes from guest to guest, button concealed in her prayer-folded hands, and mimes passing the button to the others, who one by one hold out their prayerful hands. The button-holder inserts her joined hands between each child's hands in turn and drops or pretends to drop the button into the others' hands. Once she's visited the whole circle, the question is "Button, button, who's got the button?" And the guests guess, based on what they saw. Is there a noticeable difference between depositing a button and not depositing a button? That's indeed the question.
Once the receiver of the button is revealed (imagine the triumphant raising of a little hand), the button-holder becomes the new depositor and the game begins again. The game, sedate, nonviolent, uncompetitive, can go on all afternoon. Or it used to go on. It's probably too tame for today's generation. If you were a five-year-old and had your own i-Phone, would you sit still for such a game? Probably not.
Nonetheless, I can fantasize about those quiet days, that quiet game, so gentle compared to the present. Maybe I'll bring out a button after our next dinner for ten and suggest a game. First the wine tasting, then the dinner, and finally a rousing game of Button Button. The perfect evening.
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
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