To think someone should win pass the parcel!

[Inboxer]

Went to a party yesterday and every child won a prize at pass the parcel! The parcel was too heavy for any of the children to lift when the game started and it just went on and on until all 20 children had got something. Many wandered off bored and it was frankly very dull! With 20 identical prizes and no overall winner it all felt a bit pointless!

I think there should be a small chocolate bar or sweet inside each layer and a bigger prize at the centre. Is that not how it's done anymore?

Sounds odd. I make sure each layer has a sweet or some other little prize, but the gift in the centre is a main prize.

I thought there was one prize and a bag of sweets or a lolly between layers.

someone's taken it to far now

This one they all had a slim A4 colouring book!

I agree, single sweetie in each layer and prize in the middle for winner.

Yes it is a boring game, hard to keep the kids attention once they had had a prize as they know they won't get another one.

Ìt's because some people don't think it's fair for one child to win and the others to lose.

I know people who do this.
I also know someone who every year has multiple parcels for pass the parcel so each child has the chance to win. So the game has to be replayed over and over.

Im not originally from this country. The first time I did pass the parcel I had a small-but-OTT gift for each child (bracelet, toy car) in the layers, arranged in boy/girl order, with a grand prize at the end to be won after everyone had one already (so someone would get two prizes).

I freaked out when one of the children felt too shy to play (thus ruining my careful system). Managed to lure him back to the game, but lesson learnt.

I loathe pass the parcel.

One prize in the middle plus a few sweets in between when I was a kid. My scrupulously fair DF used to refuse to 'fix' it so every child won something and would sit with his back to us while doing the music

Whenever I've seen it done there's a small pack of sweets (Haribo or similar) between each layer and a larger prize in the middle. I thought that was the norm now.

Sprink - that is hilarious! (and I speak as one who used to take children's parties very seriously myself! ) What I want to know is: how did you manage to ensure that the parcel was with the right gender of child when the music stopped?!! It was hard enough stopping the music at any child -boy or girl - who hadn't had a turn yet, especially as the game went on and there were fewer and fewer left! Oh happy days!

YANBU about the prizes all being the same! Talk about way to ruin the suspense!

The best one I've been to had a hat...a silly, deep one which they passed around and then each child reached in to pull out a small wrapped parcel. Oly silly things inside like whistles but they loved it and it wasted less paper.

Do you know...I love ptp though and have just had the idea of making a parcel for this Christmas! We will all join in!

I am filling ours with tiny bottles of spirits and nice chocolate!

How old were the children? Personally, I think pass the parcel isn't a great game for children less than about 6/7. They get bored when it's not their turn whether there are sweets in the layers or not.

The best ones are for older children with forfeits in the layer to keep the parcel moving. And with the music properly random so some get nothing and others a couple. Like I said, only for older children though. For little ones, do something else.

One way I used to keep the interest going for young children (and we had ptp at every party!) was to wrap each layer in a different (bright) coour of tissue paper, so each time a layer was removed (with sweet) another colour was revealed. The three and four year olds loved this and woud look out for the next colour each time. The tissue paper was slso good as it was very quick and easy for the children to remove, not holding up the game, but I always used a double thickness so it wasn't too flimsy to handle and it hid the adjacent colour properly!

We put a forfeit in each layer, sing twinkle twinkle, hop 5 times, moo like a cow etc oh and the favourite go and hit birthday persons Daddy on the bum. It works best if everyone joins in and keeps the attention going.

Agree but the birthday child must NOT win.

Blimey queen. That's brave, birthday boy's dad asking LOs to touch his bum! Bet the kids love it though

BetterCallSaul, I managed it by watching the parcel with eagle eyes, stopping the music precisely, then ticking the winner's name off my list, of course.

Oh it was ridiculous, a classic case of an immigrant trying too hard to get the custom right, but getting it spectacularly wrong.

This was PFB-era, though. In later years I became the first in my neighbourhood to do away with party bags.

As I said, lesson learnt.

Sprink,

I am an immigrant too who found this game vexing!

Then I was ALSO the first to just stop doing party bags, around age 7, as it annoyed me.

Were you also puzzled by the cake not being eaten, but taken away in a paper napkin in aplastic bag, to create a hideous sticky paper-icing mess....(and then what do you do with it?)

I still struggle with the cake bit

I throw a Halloween Party for the grandkids every year and we always have Pass the Parcel. There's a small chocolate bar in each layer of paper and the proper prize in the middle. Us grownups keep careful note which child wins that particular year and the next year, we always make sure another child wins, and so on. So far, over five years, all five kids have won a main prize. Does need some nifty finger work on the CD player!

When I played pass the parcel as a child there was no such thing as prizes between the layers! Just layers of wrapping paper and one prize in the middle!

When we do it for our dc there's a pack of sweets in each layer and one prize in the middle for the winner.

My parents used to put a sweet in each layer and just one prize. My Dad would control the music and sit with his back to us so he never knew where the parcel stopped.

This spectacularly backfired when it stopped on me 4 times, including the main prize. Cue lots of tears from some kids who didn't get anything and my cousin accusing my Dad of cheating.

My mum took over the following year.

With large numbers at a couple of whole class parties we've been to they've had 2 or 3 smaller parcels going round....gets through it a bit easier!!