The first holiday season of bachelor-hood garners a solid B-. Great Christmas Eve with the girls. Awkward Christmas Day back at the house. Furnace-like heat in the apartment to counter the deep freeze outside, and a nagging run-of-mill respiratory infection I'm just getting over kept the holiday yin and yang in balance.
New Years in particular looked to be a bust. Millie was in the middle of a five day adventure at a friend's house, Maja just wanted to sort laundry and finish a book. Heck, I barely stayed up for the neighborhood to turn into Beirut for 45 minutes.
But as I tried to fall asleep to the explosions overhead, I got a very nice "Happy New Year" from Maja, followed by a "When are you picking me up to game?"
That's my girl. Nothing like starting the New Year with a small family game day!
Chinese Checkers: Maja somehow confuses the backgammon board on the back of her chess set with Chinese Checkers, so for Christmas, I got a decent set of them. Confession: I don't think I ever played Chinese Checkers before, perhaps as a tiny kid. I also don't know why not, because it's relatively simple fun as a two-player game, and a glorious mess as Maja and I tried the six-player variety, with each of us taking three sets. Now that she knows the game on the back of the chess board isn't Chinese Checkers, Maja would like to learn Backgammon.
Chapacabra Dice: An old reliable game. I almost forgot about the Chupacabra Loco rule, and almost pulled out an extra victory, but as usual, it was Maja's to win.
Trash Pandas: We opened up and learned one of my Christmas presents. A Racoon-theme card game with a customized die, tokens, and a heavy dose of Cosmic Wimpout.
Ticket to Ride: I have passions that the rest of the family does not understand, baseball and trains, so I was delighted that Maja didn't mind learning this finally. Two player is not as much fun as multi, but we only foiled each other's plans for trans-continental railroads.
After a fun afternoon of games and snacks, I took her home (basketball practice first thing the following morning), grabbed some groceries and a late New Years dinner and completed Day 1 on a positive note.
Project 350: Well, this fell apart quickly to start 2023. My ultimate goal to have 350 or fewer combined blog drafts/ideas/pre-scheduled posts took a big hit, rising to 502 (332 drafts/170 scheduled posts) from 455 (299/156) a month ago. Two big reasons: (A) I did set up posts for the Orcs in the Webbe Advent Calendar ideas for 2023. There are some fun scenarios that are easily converted to skirmish-level Gnome Wars games (B) I bit the bullet and joined the #CharacterCreationChallenge for January. Between this an "regular" #ZineQuest in February, I'll have plenty of material posting through Cold Wars.
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