This is always one of those weeks that we don’t quite know what to do with in our family. Traveling far afield usually isn’t an option because of work, so we do our best to amuse ourselves and have some family time. Over the last couple of days, our family has experienced the following:
- We got a Monopoly game for Christmas (the real one, a step up from the junior version) and got it out last night to play. If you’ve never tried it, explain to a seven year-old the concept of mortgaged property. OK, then try explaining it to me, ‘cuz I’m still fuzzy on the whole deal. But seriously, the kids really jumped on this and enjoyed it, though we quit after a couple of hours. It does get kind of boring after awhile, especially if you own only a couple of decent properties and have little cash left because you’re in jail all the time (that’d be me). Funny, I can never recall ever having FINISHED a game of Monopoly in my life.
- We also got the game "Apples to Apples" which is totally hilarious, trying to match good synonyms with key words. We were all laughing pretty hard. It’s a pretty simple concept, really, and there are no batteries required. We do a lot of board games at our house becase the video kind, well, let’s just say that the last tiime I tried one was in 1985 and things have changed.
- We sat down and watched "High School Musical" on the Disney Channel. My kids love the Disney Channel, watching endless repeats of "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody" which is better than, say, WWE Smackdown all things considered. OK, I like the Disney Channel, too, for the most part. This High School Musical thing, though, is really fantastic. There, I said it. I loved it–the singing, the dancing, the story about being willing to break boundaries and follow your dreams. It was two hours well-spent. Go watch it with your kids if, by some freak of nature, they haven’t seen it yet. You’ll be glad you did.
- We decided to venture down the mountain to Salt Lake City today to do some post-Christmas shopping, which usually means running through all the gift cards the kids got for Christmas. They had a blast going through Toys R Us and Borders looking for stuff. Now here’s what does a dad’s heart good: at Border’s my seven year-old Rob chose a CD–U2’s "The Joshua Tree" without any prompting from the old man. Hannah, who’s ten, went to the Celtic music section and picked up a CD from Gaelic Storm. She’s been playing the violin this year and has really gotten into Celtic fiddling (even listening to Thistle and Shamrock on NPR on Saturday nights). Are these kids cool, or what? Then they bought some kind of goo called "Floam" at the toy store, which is like the old "Slime" we used to play with but is way more interesting. We also went to Costco to pick up a few things and had lunch at the snack bar–fed four of us for about $7.00. That’s my kind of eatin’!
- Days like this, to me, are the real gift of the season–just a couple of days to be with the family and laugh together. I hope you’ve had a chance to do that this week, too!
