Continuing in my attempt to catch up on reporting my gaming life from the last few weeks, I shall now recount the events that occurred over the Thanksgiving holiday.  But I'll actually start a little before that, when my total non-gamer sister-in-law told me that she was going to plan a "Game Night" for the Friday after Thanksgiving.  I was thrilled, and even though I figured it would be mainly a party game type of event, I thought that my other brother Tony (the gamer) and I might be able to introduce a gateway game or two to my nieces and their boyfriends.  So, I dilligently  went through my game collection, making a list of games to take.  The list started at around 34, but through careful consideration and analysis, was winnowed down to a lean 19 games; a selection perfectly crafted to generate an evening of fun for everyone involved.  Assuming, of course, that people actually wanted to play games... but I'll come back to that later.

On Thanksgiving day itself, I got in a good bit of gaming with Tony and his two sons, Alex and Ben.  We played Mystery Garden, which they had picked up at a yard sale, and Sherlock, which I had given Ben for Christmas or his birthday last year, both of which were pretty good for childrens' games.  I also suffered through another game of the Sim City card game, which Alex apparently loves.  Tony and I then settled in to play a "real" game, and while we wanted to play War of the Ring (since Tony is the biggest Tolkien fan I know), time constraints led me instead to teach him 1960: The Making of the President, which he actually gave me for Christmas last year as well. 

He hadn't ever played Twilight Struggle or any other card-driven game more complex than BattleLore before, but the game really isn't that complicated and he picked it right up.  I was Kennedy and he was Nixon, and the game followed real life as I won the presidency.  Despite several interruptions, including me running Gwen and Samantha home, Tony appeared to really enjoy the game.  I wish that we had found another opportunity to play it again before he headed back to New Bern, but I plan on making it a priority for us to get it to the table on the next chance we get.  We then finished our evening with a couple of games of Toledo, which we liked well enough but could see would probably be better with 3-4 players.

So then, back to the "Game Night" on Friday.  The evening started with an hour of family pictures, where we all arranged ourselves in various ways in the field in front my and my oldest brother's houses.  That was cool, though, because we got started early and had plenty of time for games.  Then, we all went inside where the three brothers and our wives gathered to plan Mom and Dad's 50th anniversary party coming up later in December.  We accomplished a lot and I was glad that we had the meeting, but I was starting to feel a little worried that gaming was not as big a priority at this "Game Night" as I would have hoped.  My 19 games sat poised and ready, and images of three of four tables of games running at the same time, filled with my family all laughing and enjoying themselves, still danced in my head.

Next, all the snacky-type food was uncovered and we all jumped in to eat a little.  Of course, at real gaming events, everyone would have gotten a plate of food and headed off to the tables where we would have gotten something started.  Instead, people ate and talked and talked and ate, and nobody much showed any real interest in getting a game started.  Finally, my two older nephews Peter and Alex set up Taboo and I was able to cajole enough people to the table to get started.  We all had a really good time and, with the help of us getting 20 words when I was giving clues, my team won.  Afterwards, however, people went back to talking and eating, and, if possible, were even less interested in playing games.

My mission for the evening was to get the family to try out GiftTRAP, so after another half hour or so, I was able to get 7 people around another table to try it out.  The game is awfully fiddly with all the tokens and stuff, and it just went on forever and ever, so it was a bit hit-or miss for the group.  Plus, in the midst of the game, some out-of-town friends dropped by, ending any chance of getting another big game together.  Finally, we just decided to quit and declared a winner.

Realizing now my folly, I did what I could to maintain at least a scrap of my original plan.  I set up one of my favorite games, Pandemic, and virtually forced my oldest niece and her boyfriend (who likes playing board games but hasn't had a lot of exposure to eurogames) to join Gwen and me to try it out.  Things went pretty well, with us actually winning the game and them apparently enjoying the experience, but it was getting late.  With no one else showing any interest in playing games on this ill-fated "Game Night", I packed up my 16 lonely games along with the three I actually used, and we took Samantha home to put her to bed. 

I hate to say it, but I was definitely disappointed.  Not in that I didn't get to expose more people to modern boardgames or because I have anything against good old family get-togethers or socializing parties, but because the stated purpose of the evening was to be a "Game Night".  You'd think that people would come to a game night with at least some desire to actually play some games.  Heck, that's how it worked when I've had similar groups of people gather for game nights at church or at my house, but apparently it was just not in the stars for the evening to work out as I had envisioned, and I guess I'll just have to get over it. 

So, has anyone else out there ever had something like this happen to you?