Games People Play
how playing board games and card games keeps my family close
My family has always been big on playing games. I grew up playing board games with my mother - mostly Trouble and later on Probe - and we all loved a good card game, too. I played Spit and War with my sisters, and my mom and I would sit next to each other while we each played games of Solitaire. We played Sorry and Operation and Monopoly with cousins, which is where I learned my trait of being overly competitive with board games.
Trivial Pursuit was big for a while, Apples to Apples, Scrabble, all the various trivia games that came out in the 80s. Some of my fondest memories are of playing games with my family. We are each competitive in our own ways and have developed game personalities; the sore loser, the sore winner, the cheater (sorry, dad), the pouter. Sometimes we are a little of each.
Our family game time continued as we got older, moved out, got married and had live of our own. We would always take the time to play a game or two after a holiday dinner, and my mother loved playing games - especially Uno - with my kids when they were little. But with busy lives and work and such, we hardly had time for any kind of regular game night. We were talking about it one night when we came up with the brilliant idea of a game night once a week, with me, my middle sister, my mother, and my daughter. It was a great excuse to get together, to put a pause on everything else we had to tend to and take some time to have some fun together. We agreed to meet on Tuesdays at my mother’s. She would provide refreshments. I was all in.
We started off playing Rummy-O. Every Tuesday night we’d gather at my mother’s dining room table and play three rounds of the game. We’d laugh, we’d get mad, we’d laugh again. It felt so good to have that time with each other - we missed our sister in Rhode Island greatly during these games - to just relax and eat cake and curse at each other. Game Night is the only time I’m allowed to curse at my mother and I take full advantage of that. We have called each other some horrible names in the heat of the moment.
Eventually we switched to May-I, a rummy-like card game that is intricate and requires a lot of strategy and brain power. This game is played for money, adding an extra level of competitiveness to our night. May I has been in our family for many years; I remember watching my parents and aunts and uncles playing it when I was young, all of them yelling at each other and getting mad but yet having lots of fun. We settled into our May-I routine. We have our specific seats to sit in, my sister always deals first, we always have dessert in between round one and two.
We were in such a good groove with our weekly games, really enjoying the time spent together when the pandemic hit. We retreated to our homes, afraid to meet with my 80 year old mother, afraid to be near other people. Game night was on hold and I missed it so much. I didn’t realize how much I depended on it until it was gone.
One day on a Zoom call with my two sisters, we were trying to think of something fun to do during our virtual visits. We started talking about games we could play and settled on Yahtzee, a long time family favorite. We each went on Amazon and bought our own Yahtzee games and a new, pandemic-friendly tradition was born. Once a week we get together on Zoom for a sisters game night. We play six games at one time; it makes strategy very important and is just so much more fun than one game at a time. We start off very supportive of each other, cheering for Yahtzees and large straights, shouting out encouragement. As the game progresses, we become more and more competitive until someone’s fifth Yahtzee is met with an angry “fuck off!” At the end of the game, we add up our scores and then keep track of who had high and low, and overall. It’s so nice together once a week like that with my sisters, especially since one of them is so far away.
Once we were able to start seeing people again, we resumed our game nights at my mother’s house. I had missed playing May-I so much. I missed that special family time. I missed the yelling and cursing and cake eating. It was so nice to have it back.
Playing games is such a great way to spend time together. We’ve made some great memories, had a zillion laughs, and it’s so nice to sit down and do something fun instead of just sitting on my couch by myself all night. I treasure our game nights and I treasure the games we play after holiday dinners, especially when our cousins come over and make for a bigger, even fiercer game of May-I. Sometimes we still play Rummy-O or Uno or Trouble, especially when my sister is in town and we’re killing an afternoon. Once in a while our kids will join us and we’ll have a raucous time trying to keep from strangling each other. The competitiveness streak runs deep in my family. I wouldn’t have it any other way.