Mumsnet users share their tips for a family night in with Goliath Games

[JustineBMumsnet]

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It’s not uncommon in a normal year to find yourself spending more time at home with your family as the nights draw in. With that even more likely to happen this year, making the most of family nights in is key, so you may have a few tips and tricks on how you enjoy this time together. With this in mind, Goliath Games would like to hear your tips for the perfect family night in.

Here’s what Goliath Games has to say: “Often it’s difficult to find something that the whole family will enjoy on a night in. Games like Wordsearch can bring everyone together as it appeals to anyone: from kids to parents, even grandparents! It’s such a well-recognised format and is easy to understand, just be the first to find the words on the board! Wordsearch is also educational, helping with spelling, reading and helps develop hand-eye coordination; but don’t worry the kids won’t realise they are learning as it’s so much fun!”

Do you have go-to snack ideas that please everyone, or do you order a takeaway to maximise on family time? Perhaps you find it helps to switch things up with a new board game? Or maybe your family has an old classic that you dig out time and time again?

Whatever your tips for a family night in, share them with Goliath Games on the thread below and you’ll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £100 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

We have film nights on a Sunday evening quite often with a takeaway and some snacks. Also board games and jigsaws

We like boars games but our favourite family thing is quizzes. We all love to sit down together and watch quiz shows on tv like Pointless and House of Games. We have the quiz books to go with them to put on our own family version) and also take it in turns to make up our own. Our DC are 13 and 10 and it’s great for their general knowledge as well as being fun!

We have a rota, because otherwise we’d end up playing the same game every week. We also have our own family rules, the biggest one being no cheating (looking at you, DH)

We love to set aside Saturday nights for our time, clear the dining room table for pizza (good old Asda for that one) and ice cream with sprinkles. Our favourite game is deal or no deal, and we love to play, cheer wins, and laugh at losses. We love Pictionary and snakes and ladders. It's lovely just to be together like this and keep things 'normal'.

We like jenga and the children are generally much better at it than me and so it gets quite competitive. We need to branch out a bit more, but it's nice to play something where everyone has a chance of winning

I'm loving that the kids are now getting into proper board games that we actually want to play too (as opposed to the kids ones which are great for learning how to play games but it's really not that exciting as an adult to roll a dice to get a coloured spot for your dinosaur). They're a great way to get us all to sit down together.

Our family nights in are plenty!! We love picking different movies to watch and we play some card games like UNO and rummy.

It's just my Daughter and I, we love board games. We'll cook a meal together and then follow with a board game, we do this most nights. They'll be some healthy snacks to enjoy and lots of laughs!

We love the classics - Monopoly, Frustration and Game of Life.
Monopoly is our favourite.
We love to have some popcorn and crisps to hand to keep our energy up :)

Found this has got harder as the kids have got older. Found that if we do it less often, say once every 4/5 weeks then it seems to work better as more of a novelty. Let them take it in turns to choose game and recently decided together which ones to give away as no longer want to play anymore. Having a few special snacks and drinks goes along well too.

We each chose a game and on Saturdays a grown up chooses a film for us all to watch. It means we vary what we watch as it gets a bit repetitive if a child chooses the same film over and over again.

We used to watch a lot of tv together, but had a trial of no screens at all for a week and since then we have found we enjoy other indoor activities such a lot. We build Lego, solve puzzles and even play a spot of I-spy during mealtimes. One nice food thing to do is chop up plenty of fruit and pop it on skewers. More likely to be eaten than the bowl of unloved apples.

We all try and get together for an hour on a Saturday late afternoon before we sit down for dinner. A little bit of arguing goes on as the oldest is a teenager, but we all try and not take the game seriously and have a bit of fun. Then we normally tidy up the board game and sit and have dinner on Saturday. It is a special time that we try and keep up once a week.

Our dd is 3 and loving pretend play. we set up a home cinema, she ‘buys’ her tickets from the stand, gets her popcorn or ice cream. And we all snuggle up for a film. Love it, especially on cold dark nights.

We like to have a family games afternoon. It would usually be either monopoly or labyrinth and we would have an easy tea usually take away or pizza.

We use to get a takeaway and a film but takeaways are so expensive now that I usually do a buffet night in with frozen pizza and sides. We like quiz type games although we’ve recently got Ticket to Ride which is quite popular.

If I am playing just with DH and DS10 then we love collaborative games like Pandemic or Forbidden island

With all 4 Children big hits are -King Of Tokyo, Bears Vs Babies, family cards against humanity, Carcassonne, Scotland yard,ticket to ride, Talisman

Having something like popcorn while we play works well, and picking a game that suits the time we have.

We also really love the escape rooms in a box.

We've been watching films together, building diplomacy and starting to play card games (snap etc).

Yes to the takeaway. And if we play games, we tend to start early before tiredness sets in... soon after school is best. Although as the children get older this should get easier.

We like to try lots of different games rather than stick with a couple, but like ones that have simple rules and are easy to get into.

DH and DC love board games but I'm less keen, so I make homemade pizzas while they play stuff like Carcassonne or The Boss. We all love word games. Our favourite is Banangrams. We have a few rounds until everyone has won at least once, then we play our special round of made up words, all of which have to come with a definition. We end up laughing so hard we can barely breathe.

DC are both away at uni now but we have instigated a Saturday lunchtime coffee and quiz by Zoom where we all catch up.

I forgot to add, the only one my DTeens refuse to let me play, because they want to protect my innocence, is Cards Against Humanity. I can live without it.

We have a pot with various activities written on pieces of paper inside. When we decide to have a family evening or if it's a rainy day and we can't get outside we play rock, paper, scissors to decide who picks a piece of paper from the pot and that is the activity we all do - the person who picks also gets to choose the food.

Activities include things like

• Family film
• Choose a game to play
• Craft activity of your choice
• Disco party
• Dress Up Party
• Bake something yummy
• Face Painting
• Pizza Party - create your own pizzas
• Drawing Competition - pick a topic and all have to draw something relating to it

Definitely a takeaway pizza, popcorn with M&Ms sprinkled in (kids' favourite) and everyone takes a turn choosing the game.

We always get a takeaway and let someone different choose, it's been very popular this year and we haven't done it for a few weeks but I'm looking forward to resurrecting this tradition this week!

We tend to get takeaway for fun filled nights. Popcorn is a must and crisps!

The family love monopoly but we also play Jackbox on the Xbox or app games like Among Us or Ludo.