Who doesn’t love a family game night? Ours tend to get a little competitive. I’m trying to teach my kids to be gracious winners and also not to be sore losers. By the way, if you’re looking for a good book on this subject, I recommend, Sometimes You Win and Sometimes You Learn For Kids, by John Maxwell.
Our kids earned a family game night as a reward for working together and completing all of their chores last week. The one game we could all agree on this time was Mario Party on the Nintendo Switch. My son was in charge of picking teams and at first selected kids vs. parents.
My husband is naturally good at anything related with technology and for me, the Mario games are probably the only ones I am relatively good at. After trying to explain the unfair advantage we had, my son changed the teams to boys vs. girls. Mostly because he thought Dad would bring him an easy win. You can probably tell from this picture which team actually won. I told you, it gets competitive.
I’m Just Here for the Snacks
I recently wrote a post on how I organize our kids’ snacks. In this house, snacks are a big deal! As like any parent, we have come to learn that any planned activity has to be centered around snacks if we are expecting it to be successful.
Aside from spending quality time together, the highlight of our game night was the popcorn bar. I used microwave buttered popcorn, kettle corn and some of our favorite bite sized candies to throw in. Other toppings I suggest are pretzels, peanuts, trail mix, marshmallows, or chocolate chips. Although I love chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, and popcorn seasonings, I don’t recommend using them when kids are also holding controllers. I found the individual popcorn containers at the Dollar Tree, along with the serving bowls, trays, and scoops.
Not surprisingly, the kids had more candy than popcorn but the night was a total hit. It helped having the popcorn bar on the tv stand for people to refill as needed which meant very little “lag time,” or waiting around for our team players to get back to gaming.
Families That Play Together, Stay Together
We had a blast! Thinking back to my childhood, when I was trying to picture what my future would look like, I never would have thought I would be spending Saturday nights piled on the couch with all of my kids enthusiastically competing for stars on Mario Party. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything!
Does your family love game night? Let me know in the comments what games you suggest for future game nights!
