How to throw the best family game night?
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You’re thinking of throwing a family game night. You know why it’s important. It’ll foster togetherness and strengthen relationships, but you aren’t sure how to make this night success just yet. The following are a few tips to help you throw a great family game night.
Good timing
The first thing to do is choose the right time for this special night. Everyone has schedules to keep for various reasons, so choosing the perfect day and time is going to be a bit challenging. Ask for schedules to figure out a day that’ll work for everyone. Be sure to ask your family to not make any plans until you’ve figured out the right day and time. Once you find the right day and time, designate this day as game night so that no one makes plans the next time you plan another game night for everyone. People can just add this day to their calendars.
Choose the games
The next thing you want to do is choose the right games for everyone to play. Choose games that could be played by any age group, so stay away from games like modern video games. A classic card game could work, and if you want to spice it up, you could invest in custom playing cards to surprise your family a bit. You can add pictures of each member of your family to make the game night a bit more special.
Get interesting snacks
Food is one of the most important things to get right. You may not want an entire meal, but you can offer some interesting snacks and drinks that you don’t usually make. Doing this ensures that everyone is eager to attend the family game night. Consider making something like hot cider or hot cocoa along with Blondies or some other treat. Make every game night special, and it will feel that way.
Turn off tech
Smartphones won’t be helpful here, so they need to be off. They will distract your family. It’ll make it hard to get the game going, and you’ll end up spending most of the time telling someone to get off the phone because it’s their turn. You may even have to explain the rules more than once because the phone distracted the person. You don’t want your game night to be ruined this way. Be sure to enforce a no technology policy for game nights.
Raising the stakes
Sometimes, the best way to make the game night exciting for everyone is to raise the stakes, and you can do this in a few ways. For example, you can offer a prize for the winner, maybe a gift card or some cash. This will ignite everyone’s competitive spirit. You could also battle for chores. Some can get out of their chores, while others may get stuck with certain chores based on the games you play.
Choose the right location
The location is important. People might miss this step and spend a lot of time moving from place to place depending on the game chosen. This can waste time and take away from the specialness of this day because people will get annoyed. If you’re playing a board or a card game, then it’s best to be around a table where everyone will be comfortable. If you’re playing something like Pictionary, then you need more space. Consider the living room or another large area around your home.
Get them involved
The last thing to consider doing is getting everyone involved. There’s a lot you can do to make this happen. Let everyone vote on the games you will play. Come up with a list of approved games to vote on. You could also ask them to suggest some snacks or drinks. The more your family is involved in this gathering, the happier they’ll be with this family game night. Getting every person excited about the family game night isn’t always the easiest thing to do, which is the reason you’re doing this.
Now, you have several tips to ensure this game night is successful. It’s okay if everything doesn’t go according to plan as long as everyone has fun together.