Get off the Computer & Turn off the TV: It’s Family Fun Night!

So tonight is Family Game Night and I am excited! I actually have never heard of it before until I read a Press Release from Hasbro about it. What a great idea! I am a huge board game person, we honestly have about 20 and it’s just me and my husband. Unfortunately my husband is not a big gamer and prefers TV, but I am working on him. I am looking forward to my sons joining in and playing together as a family, even though that means they are not my little babies anymore!

I used to love playing Monopoly and Sorry with my parents as a child and even today they are two of my favorite board games. How can you not like them, they are addicting! We still try to play every Thanksgiving, although with my boys, it has been challenging!

Well in honor of National Family Game Night, I am going to try to play a round or two of Scrabble with my husband and probably next year we will incorporate in our kids. They are still young and don’t really get games as much as they want to throw the pieces everywhere! So whatever you were planning on doing tonight, consider turning off your TV and stepping away from the computer to join in a game or two with your family. Whether you try a new game or stick with a classic favorite, I think board games really help bring a family closer together!

HAVE YOU HEARD? FUN FACTS ABOUT HASBRO GAMES

• Celebrities put their hand-eye coordination to the test for charity with the BOP-IT! game at Teen Choice 2009 in August. Shailene Woodley, from The Secret Life of the American Teenager, claimed the top prize with the high score of 107, surpassing frontrunners Jordin Sparks and Jackson Rathbone, and smoking the entire Black Eyed Peas crew, who barely scored 50 combined points.

• In celebration of finally receiving underwear in a recent game update, the OPERATION game’s famous patient Cavity Sam modeled red polka dot boxers during a one-time-only runway appearance at Freshpair.com’s Sixth Annual National Underwear Day event, the biggest underwear runway show in New York City to date.

• In May 2008, ABC News reported that during his presidential campaign, Barack Obama challenged press corps on Air Force One to a game of TABOO. The now President Obama and his staff beat the press in two games (25-17 and 20-18).

• Home sweet home! For the past 75 years, people around the world have been enacting sweet revenge against opponents in the classic game of SORRY!. With the object to be the first player to get to the “Home” space before an opponent bumps a pawn back to “Start,” this game has been bringing out the competitive side of players since 1934.

• Approximately every five years, highly skilled MONOPOLY players compete in National MONOPOLY Championships around the world. This October in Las Vegas, more than 40 regional champions will compete in the World Championship for a chance to win $20,580 (or the total amount of money in the game’s bank). Mr. MONOPOLY himself will attend the tournament to roll the ceremonial first die.

• In August, Lombard Street, the crooked street in San Francisco, was turned into a larger-than-life CANDY LAND game board in honor of the 60th Anniversary of the game,

• Johnny Carson helped popularize the game of TWISTER in 1966 when he played it on-air with Eva Gabor.

• Every year students from across the country compete as pairs in the National School SCRABBLE Championship. In 2009, the winners were Andy Hoang and Erik Salgado, two 11-year old boys from Cary, North Carolina.

• MONOPOLY tokens were flown into space for the first time ever on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis, STS-117 on June 8, 2007 as a “token” of thanks to the people who chose the Houston Space Center in the national vote for the MONOPOLY Here & Now Edition property spaces.

• Kanye West is a known CONNECT 4 player. While he is said to travel with a CONNECT 4 game, according to the “Entertainment All-Stars” special issue of Forbes Magazine, West’s concert rider also lists the game as a must-have item in his dressing room.

• In honor of the TRIVIAL PURSUIT Totally 80s Edition, Cyndi Lauper was tapped to direct the game’s TV commercial, which featured 11 stars of the ‘80s including Corey Feldman, Kelly LeBrock and Reverend Run (of Run-D.M.C).