Games For All Occasions Part 16

Two, three or all of these beverages with a.s.sorted wafers, etc., could be served from the dining room table, giving an opportunity to cater to the individual taste of one's guests.

Have a center piece of three large white tissue paper bells tied together with white ribbon. Place them on their side with long ribbon streamers coming from underneath each one and in the center of the three place another white bell, open side up, holding an infant doll to represent the new year. Intertwine a few sprays of asparagus fern or smilax.

It is not wise to serve intoxicants to New Year's callers thus adding a drop to the bucket that will overflow eventually with regret and remorse.

New Year's Day Party Invitations may be in hour gla.s.s form cut from heavy white paper, or bell shape.

Decorations of evergreen festoons and wreaths are appropriate, also the tissue paper bells and festoons and holly and mistletoe.

A pretty center piece for the table is a large pile of snow b.a.l.l.s made of cotton and sprinkled with diamond dust, each one containing a small favor and having a ribbon attached which runs to each plate and at a given time the guests may each pull a ribbon and receive a prize.

Refreshments may be ice cream in the form of snow b.a.l.l.s, small cakes with the abbreviated names of the months frosted on, a.s.sorted fancy cakes and bon-bons.

The following games are suggested.

GOOD RESOLUTIONS

Each person is given a paper and pencil and requested to write at the top of the page the word "Resolved," followed by expressions of amendment that he or she is conscious of needing. One such attempt at self examination resulted in the following resolves:

"I will be as honest as the times will permit."

"I will be good to all."

"I will tell no more lies."

"My best self shall rule."

"I will try to love everybody."

These are read aloud and the authors.h.i.+p guessed. All the correct guesses at the authors.h.i.+p are counted, for the prize of a china mug with "For a Good Girl" or "For a Good Boy" in letters upon it.

TESTING FATES

Upon the floor are twelve candles in a row, all alight and each of a different color. Each candle stands for a month in the year. The white one for January, blue for February, pale green for March, bright green for April, violet for May, light pink for June, dark pink for July, yellow for August, lilac for September, crimson for October, orange for November, scarlet for December. Each child in turn is invited to jump over the candles, and if the feat be accomplished without extinguis.h.i.+ng a single candle, prosperity and happiness are in store through all the months of the coming year; but if one is put out, ill-luck threatens in the month whose s.h.i.+ning is thus eclipsed; while to knock one over, predicts dire calamity.

SPIN THE PLATE

The players seat themselves in a circle except one who gives all a name pertaining to the calendar and chooses a name for himself. If there are twelve or less players, each take the name of a month. If more than a dozen play name them January first, January second, etc.

The player standing in the center of the circle, with a tin plate, places it upon its edge and spins it, at the same time calling out the name of a month or day of the month which has been given to one of the players.

The person named must jump up and catch the plate before it stops spinning or he must pay a forfeit. It is then his turn to spin the plate and call some one else into the center.

A NEW YEAR'S EVE ENTERTAINMENT

Look through your old newspapers and magazines and cut out all the pictures of the famous men and women of the century you find--everybody, from Decatur to Li Hung Chang, from Daniel Boone to Kruger, from Queen Hortense to Helen Gould, from c.o.xey to Kipling. Clip the names off, and make frames for them of pasteboard and gilt paper.

Write the invitations on the backs of your cards: "You are invited to attend the opening of the Nineteenth Century Portrait Gallery, on New Year's Eve,"--fixing the hours to suit yourself.

Then clear your drawing-room of all its furniture and pictures, covering the walls with the pictures you have framed. In the middle of the floor make a pedestal of two store boxes covered with a sheet, and on it stand a girl dressed as the G.o.ddess of Fame--draped in a sheet, her hair knotted in Grecian style, her bare arms hanging straight down, with a laurel wreath in one hand, and in the other a little package neatly tied. Light the room with four heavily shaded piano lamps, one in each corner.

Outside the drawn portieres seat another girl dressed as Time, with white hair and beard and hour-gla.s.s and scythe. And on the floor before her put a basket woven of evergreens, and filled with little tablets, each marked with all the numbers that are stuck in the corners of the pictures. Four little girls of different sizes as the Seasons--Spring with a wreath of artificial jonquils, Summer with roses, Autumn with chrysanthemums, Winter with holly--stand on the stairs to receive.

As the guests arrive they are led up to Time, who bids them enter his temple of Fame, and write down on the tablets he gives them, the names of those they recognize.

They enter and begin their inspection of the pictures, putting down such as they know--or think they know; and incidentally making many mistakes.

And when they have finished the round of the room, they sign their tablets, drop them into Time's basket, and are led away by a Season to the supper room.

When all the guests have made the tour of inspection, and the prize has been adjudged, the winner is escorted back to the "gallery" by the whole company, to receive from the hands of the G.o.ddess the laurel wreath and its little golden duplicate that the package contains.

SUGGESTIONS FOR NEW YEAR PARTIES

A novel way of selecting partners for a New Year's party is to paint upon water color paper such objects as may ill.u.s.trate the different months of the year. A candle for January, to represent Twelfth Night, or "The Feast of Candles." February, a heart for St. Valentine. March, the shamrock, as complimentary to St. Patrick. For April, an umbrella, the sign of rain. May, the month for moving, is represented by a sign upon which are the words, "House to Let." June, of course, is the month of roses, while a fire-cracker is always symbolical of July. A fan for the hot month of August, and a pile of school books for the first days of September. Hallow-e'en, the gala day of October, has a Jack-o'lantern, while the year closes with a turkey for Thanksgiving and a stocking for Christmas.

Cut these out and fasten a loop of ribbon to each one, except the fire-cracker, where a bit of cord will answer both for the fuse and the loop by which to hang it. These are for the ladies, while the men will receive plain cards upon each one of which is written a month of the year. If there be more than twenty-four guests there are many other available days, as Arbor Day, represented by a tree; a hatchet for Was.h.i.+ngton's Birthday; a flag for Flag Day; a saw, trowel or spade for Labor Day, and a ballot box for Election Day. If it be necessary to use these extra days the plain cards must be numbered to designate the different days of the same month. For instance, the card that corresponds with St. Valentine's Day will be February No. 1, while the bearer of February No. 2 will be the partner for the holder of the Was.h.i.+ngton's birthday ill.u.s.tration.

The same idea may be carried out for dinner favors, painting the various objects on cards about four by six inches in size, and pasting on one corner a small calendar. When the guests arrive they will be given the plain slips upon which are written the months of the year, and must then find at the table the calendars that correspond with their cards.

=LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY=

At dinners, parties and entertainments given on February 12th, the anniversary of the birth of our immortal Lincoln, one aim of the host or hostess should be to imbue the affair with the spirit of patriotism; so use the good old red, white and blue for the color scheme in decorating.

Busts and pictures of Lincoln, national emblems, such as the flag, s.h.i.+eld, American Eagle, etc., and military accouterments would make appropriate decorations.

Dinner favors should be candy boxes representing either miniature log cabins or a log of wood with a tiny paper or metal ax imbedded in it; small busts of Lincoln would make ideal favors for such an occasion.

Place cards may have on the reverse side a quotation from Lincoln which the guests may read in turn to furnish food for thought and conversation. The following sayings of Lincoln are suggested:--

"I do not think much of a man who is not wiser to-day than he was yesterday."

"Gold is good in its place, but living, brave, and patriotic men are better than gold."

"Let none falter who thinks he is right."

"My politics are short and sweet like an old woman's dance."

"I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women, were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during the war."

"You may fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present."