Walking Down Board Game Lane

Au revoir, Jumanji, Sorry and three different iterations of Scrabble...

Now that it's once again nearly the turn of the calendar year, I have begun my traditional exercise in rounding up of stuff to donate.

The first "collection" dealt with yesterday was sifting through the significant assortment of board games that have settled on a dusty shelf in our attic. The overwhelming majority of these are were my children's when they were younger, though some have been passed down from other relatives who thought the kids might enjoy them when they themselves were thinning "stuff" prior to household moves.

Now that our "kids" are seventeen, they have moved on from cardboard playing surfaces with molded plastic thing-a-ma-bobs, and while it saddens me to see so many games relegated to the donation pile, this melancholy walk down memory lane is a necessary trip as I conclude the process of neatly tucking each box into a large black plastic bag (or two or three) for transport to the Volunteers of America. I have especially fond memories of playing Jumanji and Small Soldiers, two games which were only purchased as a direct result of motion picture cross-promotion, and both that, as of this day, I still have zero idea as to how to actually play. But, they remain favorites because my son and I spent so much time moving the character totems around the room playing and imagining with them--something which makes letting them go even more challenging.

But, the hope in donating these once meaningful things is the same each year: hopefully they will find their way to homes or communtiy centers where someone else will enjoy them as much as we (breifly, it seems) did.