Festive Frolics

So Christmas is pretty much over now
I myself have had a really quiet one, but pleasant with it.
Just been at my parents house, with siblings popping in but mostly out and a few close relatives.

Aside from the usual feasting till pain ensues, and present perusing.

I've spent some time cooking,

Read one entirely perfect Christmas gift from cover to cover

Sorted through some of Granny's things,
Jewelery, paints and pastels,
Bit emotional but necessary at some point.

Also spent the last few evenings playing games of some sort or other.

Tonight I played lots of card games with the olds, cousins and aunt and it was a lot of fun.

It reminded me of when we were wee ones and we would spend ages whiling away the hours,
playing cards for buttons, sat round my Granny's shiny mahogany dinner table, laughing our heads off.
AND
more recently the early (few months ago) Peckham days,
when we all just moved up to the smoke and the boys had no telly
and so we spent the days playing a circulation of 2 different card games in their spanish-a-like holiday home

My auntie and cousin's reminded me tonight of some of the old card games we used to play,
that i thought i had forgotten forever...


CHRISTMAS CARD GAMES

Piggy

You take the pack and, according to the number of players,
Put aside all the aces kings queens jacks tens etc, so that for each player you remove a set of numbers
So for example with 3 players you would remove all the aces kings and queens
for 4 players you would remove all the jacks as well, and 5 the tens and so on.

You then take all the cards you have removed,(A,K,Q etc)
shuffle them then deal them out
so that each player has four cards each.

Your aim is to get four of the same cards,

So you all pick the one out of your four that you don't need
pass it to your left and
As you pass one left you pick the one up from your right that the player is passing to you.
(This all happens as fast as you can possibly manage)

When you finally get four of the same (four kings for example)
you put your finger on your nose
and everyone else has to put theirs on theirs when they notice,
and the last person to notice is 'PIGGY'

Play several rounds of this for belly aches

Tuppence Ha'penny

You deal each player 5 cards, and 5 buttons (as currency)
Place the rest of the cards in a pile.
Each player holds their five cards facing them.
Then they put one card down,
the next player tries to put down the same card (if they have it), if not any card will do,
If they DO manage to match that players card then the player who placed the first card has to put a button (or penny/pound if you are playing for big money) in the middle.
IF the next player manages to put down the same card as well then the player before puts two buttons, and if somehow the next player puts the same then the one who places the third card has to put three buttons in the middle.

This goes round till all 5 cards are down, and you go out when you run out of buttons.
You lose when you have the least buttons i guess,
but we tend to keep playing until you run out of buttons (lose)

Strip Jack Naked/Beat your Neighbour

Here, you deal out all the cards.
Then you have to just go round putting cards down, without looking at them.
But of course there are rules.
If you put down an Ace the player after has to put down 4 cards,
King 3
Queen 2
Jack 1
And if they put down 4/3/2/1 non picture cards (2-10) then they have to pick up the lot
and the next player carries on
(basically you want to get rid of all your cards to win)
If when you are putting down the 4/3/2/1 cards you put down an Ace/King/Queen/Jack etc
then the next player has to play on the same.
This goes on until somebody is left with all the cards
(although we often give up when there is two left as they have tons of cards each and it takes forever)

Chase the Ace (Peckham favoured)

Remove an Ace from within the pack of cards
Deal the remaining cards amongst all players.
All look at your cards and place any pairs you have in the middle.
Then the player to the left of the dealer picks one of the dealers cards (without looking)
If they find a pair they place it in the middle
Then the player to their left picks a card from them
(if they don't have a pair they just do this)
and hopes for a pair.
You go round and round picking cards and hoping that you aren't the fool left with the one Ace, and no friend (pair) for it.

Chase the Ace Phase 2 (not as Peckham knows it)

Deal out some buttons (currency)
Deal one card each.
If you have a king then you can put it face up as you have the highest card.
If you have an ace your in trouble.
The idea is to try and get the highest card,
You can do this by swapping your card with the player to your left.
If you decide to stick then no swap happens.
The player to your left has no choice if you decide to swap.
Everyone does this around the table.
Then the dealer, if unhappy with what they have ended up with, can play the card from the top of the rest of the deck straight face up.
The person with the lowest card loses a button.
And you don't want to lose one of your buttons thats for sure.

Then like the other games we just keep playing till we're out of buttons.

If you lose all your buttons at any point in any games,
but are the first to go you get beggars luck
so you get to keep that last button for one final chance

SO

take these games
attempt to play them
for almost guaranteed good clean fun

If you have any problems then you should definitely call me,
which you should do anyway to invite me round because i obviously love these games
(despite my poor descriptions of rules etc)