And You Must Be the Monopoly Guy!

My favorite board game of all time is Monopoly. My mom and aunts taught me to play it when I was 7 and I received my very own game for my 8th birthday. I LOVED it and played it all the time...with my mom, by myself...whomever I could convince to play with me. I learned to play in a very nice way. Once one person bought the property of one color, no one else would buy the other properties in that color group. Isn't that so sweet? And so not the way the game is supposed to be played.

When I was 12, my friend and her brother introduced me to the cruel reality that is a real game of Monopoly. It is ruthless and heartless and you actually TRY to get the properties others are collecting so that you can bargain with them to get the properties they own that you want. It took me some getting used to playing with them but I finally got the hang of it. I never won, of course, (I think Ephraim won EVERY game) but I still loved playing. It was a fun tradition, laughing and playing and eating snacks, fighting off younger siblings who longed to be a part of the action but were deemed too young to play.

In my house, no one really wanted to play. My dad H.A.T.E.D. board games. All board games. Anna was too young to play with so I improvised. I played myself. I assigned the pieces to friends and we all played "together." Eventually, I even did without the money and kept track on notepads. During high school, I usually had a game of Monopoly going on somewhere in my room. Does this fact about me scare you? It scares Chris a little.

Last week at a garage sale I found a Monopoly game all sealed in the box. The old version that I had as a kid. I couldn't pass it by and bought it. I went home and taught the kids how to play and they love it! I'm so glad. So now we have the tradition in our house...laughing (some fighting), playing and eating snacks and fighting off younger siblings who want to play too. For some reason, Christopher is the Monopoly champion of our house right now. He has won every game so far. You would think that all the playing I did as a kid would make me really great but I still stink at it. It's just fun to play.