I’m not a gamer. That’s kind of embarrassing to admit, especially when all my kids are gamers, and my eldest son is a video game designer. I’m cool with Rock Band, Words With Friends, and Word Crack. But this holiday season I found myself branching out a bit more, and it was really fun.

It began on Christmas day with a game of Pokemon Monopoly that was the cherished Christmas gift my upper-teenaged sons had asked for, and Charlotte, a great family friend, got for them. We set up the board in our NY home and pinged my cousin Lise, who lives in Denmark. She is recovering from surgery and was stuck in bed for the holiday. Poor thing.

At first we didn’t connect well. It seems like lots of people were online for the holiday, and normal venues of communication were not working well. Skype, Facetime and Google Hangouts all froze throughout the day, but we finally got a clear connection with Zoom. And we played for two days :). It was very fun, and Lise and Chris were particularly good at throwing taunts and bargains at each other across the Atlantic. Here’s a short clip of their bargaining.

Lise got these great screenshots of my husband’s money grubbing “gimme” hands.

And yes. Chris won. Rich Uncle Pennybags. Not only did he get all our property and cash, he also managed to get every $500 in the bank!!

We all agreed that we will have to do it more often.

It was an odd Christmas for us. The first in which all three of our boys were in different states. We noticed Hudi staying up later and later and realized he was connecting with his brothers online, playing games into the wee hours of the morning. As a mom, I happen to love the fact that they can be so far apart, yet still enjoy hanging out together online.

Zeb came home, and his girlfriend came to visit. We all took a trip to hang out with my mother-in-law. While Chris and I worked, the kids played games with her, and when our work was done, we joined them in playing Chaos (another game from Charlotte), Scrabble, and Pinochle. A family favorite we haven’t played since Dad died three years ago. It brought back a lot of happy memories. Here’s a pic of the kids taking a break and enjoying the silly straws they purchased at a local dollar store:

It was so fun, we decided to dedicate a room in our house to gaming once we got home. Maybe they’ll make a gamer out of me yet.