Some kids won’t sit still for charades, and some grown-ups would rather eat cold stuffing than draw in front of people. Emoji puzzles fix both problems. Everybody gets a sheet, a pencil, and a few quiet minutes to crack the code. Thanksgiving emoji Pictionary strings little pictures together, like a turkey and a running shoe,…

Last Thanksgiving, I tried to run Pictionary off a list on my phone. Somebody kept peeking at the screen, the phone kept locking, and my brother-in-law accused me of rigging the prompts. This year, I’m printing real cards. A printable Thanksgiving Pictionary deck takes about 20 minutes to make, and it keeps the game fair,…

Not everybody at Thanksgiving wants to stand up and act. But hand them a marker and a paper plate, and suddenly Uncle Ray is the most competitive person in the room. That’s the magic of Thanksgiving Pictionary. All you need is paper, a few markers, and a stack of prompts, and stick figures totally count….

Dinner reservations on February 14 are a nightmare. Every restaurant is packed, the menu is “special” (read: pricey), and you spend half the night waiting for the check. So my husband and I started staying in. A few years ago, we swapped the fancy dinner for takeout and a stack of Valentine’s party games for…

Every February, someone in my friend group says, “We should do something for Valentine’s Day,” and then nobody plans a thing. So last year I did. I threw a game night, and it turned out to be the best party we had all winter. The trick is picking Valentine’s party games for adults that are…

Valentine’s Day class parties move fast. You get maybe 45 minutes, 24 kids on a sugar high, and one bag of conversation hearts standing between you and total chaos. That’s why I keep a stash of Valentine’s games for kids ready to go every February. Most of them use paper cups, dice, and candy from…

Kids will search the whole house for a paper heart if you call it a hunt. I learned that the year my daughter forgot about her Valentine’s candy because she was too busy chasing clues. A Valentine’s scavenger hunt for kids takes about 15 minutes to set up, and it can fill a whole afternoon….

By mid-January, everyone in my house has cabin fever. The kids have built every blanket fort possible, and I’ve heard “I’m bored” more times than I can count. That’s when a winter scavenger hunt for kids saves the day. On nice days, I bundle everyone up and send them outside to hunt for pinecones, animal…

New Year’s Eve with kids is a marathon. Everyone’s wired at 7 p.m., cranky by 9, and somehow there are still three hours until the ball drops. A New Year’s Eve scavenger hunt fixes the slow middle of the night. Hide a few clues, hand out a list, and the countdown suddenly feels a lot…

The best Friendsgiving I ever hosted had a half-raw turkey and three pans of stuffing. Nobody cared, because we played games until 1 a.m. Good food gets people in the door. But Friendsgiving games for adults are what turn a potluck into a night your friends talk about until next November. The right game gets…