I have been meaning to host a board games night for a couple weeks now, but I needed to push it away from Taylor Swift’s release of Red (Taylor’s Version) because I would not be emotionally stable enough to host an event. I love hosting events, my mom is really good at hosting and I think that like my occasionally reappearing Southern accent, the Southern hospitality has stuck with me. I love making food that people enjoy and bringing people together. So now that I’m feeling more comfortable being around other people and am actually meeting people to bring together it’s really nice to be able to flex my hosting muscles again.
My favourite casual nights to host in the winter are movie marathons and board games nights. They are light (well I guess depending on the movie you pick for a movie night) and as long as you avoid playing monopoly everyone should start and leave the night in a good mood.
Games
So firstly, you will want to pick your games, you may be one of those people with an entire library of board games, I was not. I originally wanted to thrift all my games, but the pandemic ruined that for me. But my board game essentials for a board game night are Cards Against Humanity, Jenga, Clue (not really a great board game night game, but it’s my favourite board game of all time), Twister, and What do you Meme?. All important games and good options for a board games night. I don’t actually own Twister, and as adults you have to be careful when you pull out Twister, it can have a slightly different meaning now then it used to so, twist cautiously. I also love get-to-know you games like We’re Not Really Strangers and Let’s Fucking Date (not available for purchase at the moment). Oh and Headbanz and that game that Ellen DeGeneres made, it’s on your phone and you hold it up to your head and other people act it out and you have to guess it? I had to google it, Heads Up (available in your app store). But I wanted to get people off their phones for a bit.
Food and Drink
I made this fantastic Spicy Pomegranate Ginger Paloma, that I didn’t take any pictures of (or serve in nice glassware because I don’t own any yet) and then had white and red wine and beer. It was way more than enough. The for food I made this Spring Salsa (cherry tomatoes, corn, jalepeno, red onion, cilantro and lime juice), a cheese board and this fantastic Pepperoni Pizza Dip that one of my childhood friend’s older sister used to make. Again, I had way too much food, I was also going to make guacamole but I realized how much too much food I had and decided not to make it.
Also, always have some non-alcoholic drinks on hand, sparkling water, pop, tea, coffee, etc. are all good ideas!
Food allergies
You also want to keep people’s food allergies in mind. I know that since it is now 2021 we should all know that by now, but one of my friends is gluten free, so I put the crackers for the charcuteries board in two separate side bowls and had a bunch of knives out to cut the cheese so that there wouldn’t be any cross-contamination.
And that’s really it! Honestly, these are such a fun, easy night to put together. We bitched about work and got to know each other outside of work and it was just really fun. I would definitely recommend that you have your friends over for a board games night too!
Laura
Thoughtful Millennial 