Diane, my sister-in-law, was visiting from Florida and had looked forward to being here a few weeks before Christmas to participate in the annual Family Cookie Baking Day. Her Mom Marilyn seems to outdo herself each year with the help of son Donald and his wife Jackie, with whom she is living in her customized basement suite.
It’s December 2017 and Diane has brought her baking expertise, creativity and of course her deck of Phase 10 cards. She never leaves home without it and is always ready to challenge any and all takers to a game. And so it is this weekend when we join them all for dinner.
As we dive into some of those yummy Christmas cookies, the volume rises around the dining table along with the competitive sibling and in-law rivalries. I’m dead last for an extremely long time, but start to make a bit of a comeback while the heat swirls between those at the front of the pack until Barbie is overtaken and Rob is declared victor!
All in all, it’s been a lot of fun and reminds me of other Family Game Nights through the years…
There was Canasta with my Mom, nieces and nephews at my sister’s, Yahtzee with my parents in their retirement home apartment, and Risk with my husband Chris crushing the competition whenever our relatives visited our Tennessee cabin in the Smoky Mountain woods.
Whatever the game, the shared conversations and laughter interspersed with the shuffling and dealing, rolling of dice and counting points, strategizing and taking territory have created “mattering moments” that have lingered in our memories. We continue to reminisce about past rounds of gameplay even while creating new shared experiences.
Beyond the faded recollection of who won what game there remains what seems like a big group hug. It feels good with each remembering. It’s something that unites and connects our generations in ways that are unique to this Barker-Litton-Morrissey-Chambers-Foltz collection of folks. So, this is us…and Game Night is one of the things that our family likes to do when we gather together.
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