Any number of players can take part and in fact the more the merrier. It's particularly fun if children are involved.
I have three variations of the game. Before Christmas everyone has to buy a present for however many games you are going to play.
Presents must cost under £1 unless you feel like playing the deluxe game when they should cost under £5000 ( only joking on that one but you can set your own limit).
All presents are to be wrapped.
Game One
Put all the wrapped presents in a box or bag or sack and mix them all up. Put the names of those playing in a bag and draw them out one by one.
The first name out of the hat fumbles around in the bag and picks a present which they unwrap and puts the contents in front of them. The second person out of the hat takes a parcel and unwraps it but then has the choice of keeping that present or swapping it with the first person's present. This continues until the last person's name is picked out and that person can swap their present for any of the others. This game is fun because you might start with a present you quite fancy having only to find somebody pinches it from under your nose.
Game Two
Same as game one except you do not unwrap the parcels. So if you swap you will be choosing blind. When everyone has had a go you unwrap your parcel to see what you have got. Children tend to go for the biggest parcel. You can draw the names at random again or go in reverse order of the first game so that the person who went last in game one goes first in game two and so on.
Game Three
Pick the names out of a hat but this time everyone unwraps the parcel and puts the present in front of them. You then choose an amount of time - say five or 10 minutes and somebody acts as timer. Each person then rolls a dice in turn and if they roll a one or a six they have to swap their present for another. This game is tremendous fun as when we played it last year there was a lovely little Christmas milk jug that everyone wanted. I had the jug with five seconds to go when my cousin rolled a six and took it. The game got quite aggressive.
Another good Christmas game is spoons. You will need a deck of cards and decide what game you play. A version of rummy works or any number of other games. In the middle of the table are spoons but one less than the number playing. So if you have eight players there will be seven spoons. When a player gets the required hand he or she takes a spoon. At that point all the other players grab for spoons and the person who fails to get one is eliminated. The game continues always with a spoon less than the number of players.
Please be aware this game can end in chaos and be very noisy and is best when it is finished off with a glass of something nice.
* * *
Wednesday was the Hethersett Old Farts Christmas lunch at Janey's Village cafe. Seven of us sat down and as usual the conversation became very surreal. For some reason we took to remembering pianists that we grew up with. Liberace, Mrs Mills. Violet Carson who later found fame as Ena Sharples in Coronation Street. Then there was Liberace and Russ Conway with the cheesy grin. Then Richard Clayderman and of course the legendary Wayne King (I kid you not because I checked his name on the Internet). Then that morphed into child singers like Lena Zavaroni and Neil Reid who I seem to remember won Opportunity Knocks for about six weeks singing the same song "Mother of Mine". Zavaroni died many years ago but Neil Reid is now 63.
Who remembers Opportunity Knocks? I was so upset when I found out that there was no science behind the clapometer and it was just a man moving it along rather than a genuine measure of the audience response to an artist.
Opportunity Knocks did bring us some genuine talent though like comedian Les Dawson and singer Mary Hopkin.
The Old Farts had our usual toast to absent friends and The Nidderdale Women's Institute who we look upon as our sponsors despite the fact they've never sent us as much as a brown ale.
There was a lot of talk of hiring a minibus and touring Yorkshire with our version of the Rock Opera Tommy as at least three of us seemed to know the words to Fiddle About and Uncle Ernie and Pinball Wizard. It's a boy Mrs Walker it's a boy.
The conversation went on for almost four hours, getting more and more strange as we went. Of course the red wine had nothing to do with that.
Walk update. Yesterday I did the best part of three miles which leaves me with just another 11 to do by the end of the year to complete the 1500 miles to raise money for the East Anglian Air Ambulance. I am so grateful to everyone that sponsored me and have been asked by a few people to publish the link again which I will do when I have completed the walk which will probably now be just after Christmas.
See you all tomorrow. If there is any topic you would like me to blog about do let me know and I will do my best although car maintenance is definitely a no no.