Failure Transformed into a Game

We had a friend round for "dinner and games" last night. The dinner was roast chicken and roast veggies, with broccoli and cabbage, and onion gravy.

I tried to make a glamorous, show-stopping pud. The hazelnut brownie bases worked beautifully. The two ganaches were spot on and the raspberries and mini M&Ms were just wonderful. The problem was I had forgotten to put paper on the ring moulds I was using to make the chocolate collars. The choccy stuck to the metal and wouldn't budge. Instead of beautiful chocolate collars, we had curvy chocolate shards of random size. Well tempered chocolate random shards though!

Instead of fretting over cracked chocolate, we started off the games with 'build a stunning dessert'. It went over really well, and there a number of cries of 'This is fun! The verdict was original dessert would have been good, but assembling your own from tasty bits was more enjoyable.

Later we plated 'Concept' and 'Bananagrams'. Both are excellent games. Bananagrams is a great one to take on holiday as it's compact and can be played anywhere there's a flat surface.

Family Fun and Games

For some people, the nightmare at Christmas is spending time in close quarters with family. For us, it's a joy. We actively enjoy spending time together, playing, talking, singing, walking, and just being in the same space. 

The Elder Offspring bought the family a present, the game 'Concept', and we have played it a number of times. "In Concept, your goal is to guess words through the association of icons. A team of two players – neighbors at the table – choose a word or phrase that the other players need to guess. Acting together, this team places pieces judiciously on the available icons on the game board."

An example is 'Titanic'. The main icon would go on 'movie'. A second one might on on transport, and on the downward arrow. 'Clockwork Orange' was guessed from 'movie', 'time' and the colour 'orange'.

It's all about communication, and is similar in nature to the game 'Charades'.