3 multi-generational holiday parties

Party 2: Are you game?

Theme: You've been hooked on games since you were old enough to pick up a game card or roll a set of dice. And whenever you've got a group of people gathered around your kitchen table, there's bound to be a Scrabble game going on. So it only makes sense that you'd choose to host a multi-generational games night at your place during the holiday season. After all, where are you going to find the next generation of opponents if you don't start recruiting them now?

Location: Indoors

Age: All ages

Invitations: Design invitations that feature images and icons from some of your favourite board games: a game card from Monopoly, a letter from Scrabble and the spinner from the 1960s cult classic Twister.

Decorations: Decorate your party room to resemble a scene from one of your favourite games. Make your guests feel like they've stumbled into Candyland, walked on to the world's biggest Twister mat, or stepped in to a box of Dominos.

Food: Serve a checker board pizza for dinner (put the pepperonis on the alternate "squares") and a snakes and ladders cake for dessert. Decorate individual square cookies to look like Scrabble pieces or rectangular cookies to look like Monopoly money. And transform a series of rectangular, store-bought crackers into eye-catching dominos by applying a few "dots" of green or red pepper to a thin layer of cream cheese.

Fun and games: In addition to putting out all of your favourite games so that your guests can enjoy rousing rounds of everything from Backgammon to Parchesi to Sorry, you may want to try some of these fun activities at your party:

• DIY board game: Provide some basic art supplies and challenge your guests to design their own board games.
• You rule!: Ask each party guest to come up with a board game rule that they would add to a classic board game if they were the game company's CEO. Award prizes for the rule that is most likely to make a game drag on forever and the rule that is most likely to result in a family feud.
• Board game trivia contest: Test your party guests' knowledge of classic party games. Be sure to offer prizes (e.g. pre-owned copies of board games that you scooped up in second-hand stores or on the garage sales circuit).
• "Don't get bored" board game mixer: Play "musical board games." When the timer rings, everyone has to leave the board game they were just playing and join another board game mid-game. In other words, they go from being the race car in Monopoly to being player number three in Scrabble.

Other:
• Set up a ping pong table if you need more table space. It will provide a strong and sturdy game-playing surface.
• Don't forget to have some games on hand that will appeal to younger kids- -- Candyland, Snakes and Ladders, some basic mix-and-match games and so on.