Tis the season to deck the halls with boughs of holly (we did that), troll the ancient Yuletide Carol (we've done that), strike the harp and join the chorus ( we've all be playing Christmas tunes on the piano)....and to catch the cold virus.  What, you're not familiar with that verse in "Deck the Halls?"  That's an original verse we made up, because I can't remember the last holiday season we've had where all of us has been healthy. Hmmmmm, it must have been in those days of yore...before children, God bless them!  lol  

     And here I thought we were doing so well, exercising daily, eating healthy, drinking fluids, keeping positive in the midst of uncertain times, but somehow those nasty cold viruses have a way of sneaking in.  My poor daughter was sick during Christmas but had excellent spiritis throughout, I was impressed.  But we finally all succombed to the nasty virus. So when everyone asks about our wonderful holidays, we aren't exactly in agreement.  lol  

     Yesterday, New Year's Eve arrived and the children were feeling better and anxious to get going on our annual game night hours early, even though their dad was at work.  Sure, I was happy to oblige, I had been looking forward to this fun time to get my mind off our uncertain future, and I was sort of hanging in there with the cold. 

     The youngest gets to choose the first game.  The winner writes their name in the lid next to the year.  It has been fun adding to this list each year and seeing who has won in years past.  In the beginning, I used to win most of the games. Now you know why I like this evening so much!  =)  However a couple of years ago my then 11 year old son won every game!  Of course he was ecstatic and I was chagrined.  I consoled myself by telling myself I must be a very good teacher.  lol  In reality though, he was born with a brilliant mind!  It has little to do with me!  Last year my husband won most of the games as I recall.  Before my son became so brilliant, my daughter won quite a few.  We never know how these nights will turn out!  

     My son picked the first game, Life.  Sure, let's get that one out of the way!  LOL  I do not like this game.  I always go to college and end up with the worst salary.  Hmmmm, isn't that true in the life of teachers anyway?  When I went to college all my friends told me I was too smart to be a teacher.  I should become a doctor or lawyer instead.  But I suppose I was a glutton for poverty.  I became a teacher and now homeschool.  I do lots of volunteer type stuff as a teacher now and my husband is aggressively suggesting ideas for me to make money at this! Perhaps I could teach Latin over the internet.  I don't think so.  I am learning Latin, even though I own a Latin curriculum yahoo group to help other homeschool moms.  Whenever they ask a question, they really stretch my brain, but it has always been for the best.  Well,  surprise, surprise, I won the game.  I started with the lowest salary, but had an opportunity to trade salary's.  So I switched my $20,000 for my son's $100,000.  He didn't mind, because he knows he will soon land on the same space (he always does) and would get it back.  Well don't you know he landed on that space before I even had a chance to earn a paycheck!  The sweet child took pity on me so he traded with his sister instead and took her $80,000 salary.  That is the only reason I won this game.  

     I picked my favorite game next, Scrabble!  This used to be the game I always won, but my kids are getting pretty good at this, so I suggested a challenge.  How about we use words specific to Colonial Williamsburg?  They now have a new feature, "The Word of the Day" and we could reference that for the game.  My kids said no way.  sigh  LOL  They referenced the dictionary the entire game, even during their turn.  Even though this is against the official rules, I'd rather they learn and play well and not get discouraged.  My daughter did a terrific job playing big words!  My son would find words in the dictionary that he wasn't quite sure of the meaning but played them anyway. lol  He was in the lead until the end, when I snuck in some additional letters to other words.  That gave him the idea to do the same.  I won this game.  I think the kids did a great job, because in the end we each had only 1-3 letters left.  

     During this game my husband came home feeling awful and went straight to bed for a nap.  By the time he awoke, this game was over and I got our festive snacks ready for dinner.  Tamales are festive around here so we enjoy them for Christmas Eve and New Years Eve.  We settled down to snacks and enjoyed an old movie, Bachelor Mother with Ginger Rogers and David Niven which takes place during New Years.  The kids begged to see this funny movie.

     Then I picked the Colonial Williamsburg game, because I knew it was one of my daughter's favorites.  My husband did play this game with us, though he didn't know how long he'd last.  The kids had more fun than ever with this game.  Thanks to our wonderful time with Revolutionary City, they got every question correct!  My son won!

     My son picked Blokus next.  I love this game because it's a thinking game.  But due to the colds, none of us were in top strategic form.  This wasn't our best layout of tiles.  Nevertheless, my son did the best and he won!

     By this time, my husband went to bed.  It was about 10pm and I really wanted to go to bed too.  I had had little sleep the last few nights and I was getting a headache to boot.  But the kids were eager to stay up until midnight, so I tried my best to hang on.  My son picked Yahtzee next, which I won.  I was surprised, because my daughter got 2-3 Yahtzees.  My head was hurting too much to double check her math, but she is better at quick adding than I am, especially when I have a cold and a headache.  At this point I was just letting the kids do whatever and I was following their lead.

     Unbelievably to my son, I picked Jenga next. I thought this could finish out the night and help me to stay awake and somewhat focused.  You have to strategically take out blocks and place them on top, without letting the tower fall.  We never got the tower to go as high as usual.  There were extremely aggressive architects this year.

     Finally, it was close to midnight.  We watched the celebrations in downtown San Antonio.  The Tower of America is the focal point, where the #9 rides up the elevator to the top and then 2009 appears with a fireworks show. We heard a few fireworks in our neighborhood, but it was the quietest New Years ever in the 9 years we've lived here.  Our first year here was the noisiest. Back then we were not yet part of the city limits and my husband was in Korea.  The kids and cat and I were terrified.  I think we were the only ones who did not pop fireworks.  It felt like WWIII.  That is what led to this tradition of playing games.  Fireworks would go off all night, the kids were scared, and we'd let them stay up, because it would only escalate once midnight arrived.  It's turned out to be a fun tradition, even during illness.  This particular New Years also seems to foreshadow the coming year.  We have no idea what the future holds, as my husband will soon retire and is currently job hunting.  Even though we aren't enthusiastic about our uncertain future, we are going into this with hope.             

Every New Year's Eve we have snack and game night.  Whoever wins the game gets to write their name in the box lid next to the year.  Now that we have accumulated so many games, the kids and I want to sqeeze in as many as possible.  DH however couldn't stand the idea of playing games all day and all night.  The kids and I think it's fun.  Besides I still had this cold and didn't feel like being too active so I got caught up on some blog reading in the morning while dh washed the vehicles.  Finally, after lunch, I told the kids we could play games and to invite their dad.  I guess he just could't resist.  ;)

Our first game was chosen by dd.  Surprisingly, she chose "Hail to the Chief."  I thought she'd choose one of her favorites, one of our many geography games.  I bought this game for ds a few years ago, knowing he had a goal to one day be president, to restore traditional values to our country.  At one point, a question about Teddy Roosevelt came up.  DH ran and got his book on TR to reference some information.  Now dh is not into books.  This book is a tome!  My brother, who is a history buff, found out dh was a fan of TR.  So 8 years ago, he bought this book for him.  We all laughed when we saw it, because dh just doesn't enjoy reading books.  But this book he truely enjoys.  He simply has not had time to devour it.  He's had USAF work, college, house remodels...and tons of pages to read.  But he has faithfully plunkered through and is nearing the end.  There might be a few hundred pages left!  LOL  

The object of this game is to answer questions about presidents, while accumulating enough delegate votes to be the party candidate.  After that we can go through the states, accumulating necessary electoral votes to win the race.  Once we have enough votes, it is a race to the White House.  The first one who has enough votes and moves across the board and uses the exact number of dots on the dice to land in the White House is the President.  Second place is VP.  DS usually wins this game.  This year we have new winners!  DH became President and I became VP!  What a team!

The winner picks the next game.  So dh picked Wheel of Fortune.  I forgot to take a picture of this game...which I won, while playing Vanna White and turning letters.

I knew this might be the only winning game for me...so I picked my favorite, Scrabble.  DH detests this game...and he won!  Not only that, I played all the large words, yet he won with small words using rare letters on double letter and triple word spaces.  We like to play to the end anyway, trying to use up our letters.  Only 2 were left, "j" and "g".  Can you find a space for them?

Then we played Colonial Williamsburg.  I bought this when we visited a few years ago and it's a favorite with the kids.  The game brings back lots of fond memories and reviews lots of great history.  Again, dh won this game.

By now, it was time for dinner.  We usually have more of our Christmas snacks.  

Cheese, meat and crackers...and shrimp...

Cheese sticks...tamales...

Sweets...

I could not believe dh's plate of food he had arranged.  It was just too much.  Well, actually I could believe it. This is what I've been trying to tell y'all in these last few months.  He's the one who likes everything just so.  He would just love it if I made all these foods I pictured above look show stopping gorgeous.  If I did that I would not have a life.  Dh wants me to have a life; he expects me to whip these out beautfully in nanoo seconds.  Here is his perfect, formal, perfectly arranged, New York Citified Metropolitan plate...

This is my simple, down to earth, country, low carb, "let me have a life" plate...(yes, he knows I'm sharing this info ;) 

Now you know why I go ballistic when he starts another remodel during the holiday season.  He likes me to have the house looking like plate #1 while he keeps hauling in his tools and materials and making it look more like plate #2.  Okay, don't get me started on this...

While eating his perfectly arranged food, dh had to watch a movie.  We pulled out a favorite, "Bachelor Mother".  This was made in the 40's I think, starring Ginger Rogers and David Niven.  She is a single lady who works in David Niven's department store, selling miniature Donald Ducks.  She loses her job.  A guy on the floor talks her into joining him in a dance contest (it's fun to watch her dance even without Fred Astaire) While walking down the street, she sees a lady leaving a baby on the steps of the foundling home.  She rushes over and picks up the baby and takes him in...but the foundling home people think she is the mother. They go to her boss, David Niven, to discuss how to help this poor unwed mother.  Niven gives her back her job and gives her a pay raise.  Niven, meanwhile, is a bachelor, out every night with a different gal, home late...and his father is desperately trying to settle him down.  In the end, the baby ends up with a wonderful mother and father...and it is funny to watch the baby's expressions while watching Rogers and Niven banter back and forth.  

After that, we played Life.  This is not my favorite game, because there is no logic.  I would never make some of the choices forced upon me by the roll of the dice.  Once again, dh won this game.

By now it is 10pm and we are all getting sleepy.  But we let the kids stay up...the fireworks are going off outside so sleep is impossible.  Might as well stay up and play games.  To help us stay awake, dh chose Jenga. 

I know there is a physics lesson built into this game...I'm just not up to speed on the subject.  But this tower is built with layers of rectangular blocks, 3 to each level lying perpendicular to each other.  You try to push out one and put it on top.  Hmmmm, this is hard to describe...maybe I can show you.

Here is ds pulling out one which he needs to place on top...

Here's another one getting pushed out...

Taking out another one...oh did I mention this thing gets wobbly!  The loser is the one who makes it topple!

Here I am trying to be ever so careful...

You have to imagine this thing getting wobbly...it can blow any minute now...

Uh oh...it's looking a lot like the Leaning Tower of Pisa...

Uh oh...that's the end of that tower.  We played 4 rounds, so each of us could start.  The difference in our technique was interesting.  DH and dd are very global; ds and I are sequential.  DD and I are very careful, usually going for the middle of the 3 pieces in the layer, to keep the foundation sturdy.  The guys are more gutsy and prefer to go after the outside pieces, making the tower more precariously prone to fall.  The kids and dh can be completely reckless.  Yes, even dd.  There are times she just goes for it and doesn't try to be careful...but it usually holds together.  I, however, am ever so gentle and careful.  So who won...I did!  I was the only one who never let it fall.

So I picked the final game, my new favorite.  I bought it for ds this Christmas.  Blokus.  It's gotten played a lot since Christmas, mostly without me. DH and ds have been taking turns winning the game. The day after Christmas I was so out of it I just laid on the couch with the cat and dozed and watched tv while they played.  I must admit I was jealous, but I simply didn't feel good.  When I finally got a chance to play, I kept losing, but it was so addictive, I had to try.  Then dh and ds got into blocking each other and that diverted ds's attention from getting me...and I was easily winning.  Tonight however, dh won the game.  

This year was highly unusual for dh to win so many games.  The last two years it's been mostly ds winning with a game apiece for the rest of us.   

By then it was time for the New Year.  I usually buy blowers and pop confetti between Christmas and New Years.  But where have I been all this time?  Here at home feeling yucky!  I didn't even think about it until dinner!  Oh well. 

Happy New Year Everyone!