Today I’m grateful for board games. I’ve probably been playing them for forty years. It started with the usual suspects: games like Sorry, Parcheesi, Life, Monopoly, and of course Pop-up Trouble. In high school there were more complicated games like Scrabble, Chess, and even Axis and Allies (which often took several weekends to play!). Decades later, I have a well-stocked game closet:
This is only part of my collection. There are more games on other shelves, and some of the less-played ones are stashed on the very top shelf of the closet. And every month or so, it seems, another game joins the group. Pepper rolls her eyes a bit (“Don’t you have enough games?”) but I figure there are plenty of other hobbies that are more expensive or more dangerous. Board games are relatively cheap and simple.
Board games were (and are) a favorite activity with my kids. There have been countless afternoons and evenings where we’d gather around the table and spread out some game for an hour or two. It’s become our “thing” when we’re together. Pepper only likes a handful of games, but the kids tend to be pretty excited to pull something off the shelf. Part of the fun is the absolute trash talk.
In Longmont, I loved getting together with Jason, Mark, Mike, Brit, Scott, Brendan, Kurt, and others every few weekends for a night of board games. We’d usually crank through two or three games, and we’d eat Cheetos and Peanut M&M’s while we chatted and laughed and talked smack. Even after I moved away, we’ve kept the tradition alive with the occasional remote game night. When I visited Longmont a few months ago, of course we got together for some games.
I still meet up annually with my high-school friends, the Magnificent Seven, for a long weekend of gaming. Covid shut down the world but didn’t stop us from playing. This summer I drove several thousand miles to Omaha and back to play games.
And now here in Bigfork I have a gaming group. Every Monday we get together for some pizza and a game or two (Mahjongg is a part of that tradition as well). Every Thursday we meet up in town, or in Columbia Falls, with a larger game group. Tonight we had our annual Secret Santa board game dinner– called the Covert Turkey this year because we had to do it extra early in November. We each bought someone else in the group a game, and I went home with one I’ve been wanting for a while.
In short, board games have been a way for me to be more social, expand my circle of friends, keep my mind sharp, and have fun throughout all of it.