December Reflections: Circles

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Inspired by my December Reflections photo on Instagram for day 4, I have decided to write about my love for card games today. 

"What do card games have to do with circles?!" I hear you ask.

Not a lot, I'll admit. The best I could come up with is that you tend to sit in a circle if you are playing a game with more than one person than yourself, but I'm going to run with it and see where it takes us because, quite frankly, I can't think of anything else to write about.

I've had a love of card games from an early age. I'm sure it started with Snap and memory games, but I remember my nan and grandad teaching me some of their favourites too. Nan was a fan of Patience, both normal and the clock version. I used to loved playing it and it kept me amused while she was getting on with housework. Then Grandad taught me how to play Go Fish together and sometimes Nan would join us for a game too. 

Grandad was also one for card tricks and taught me how to do one once. I can't remember it anymore, but I loved the fact that I was able to do even one piece of 'magic'.

As time went on I played card games less and less, especially when I got a computer and realised I could play all my favourites and more on there. Over time I discovered new card games that would take the place of those played with traditional playing cards. 

Around the time I got into Harry Potter, I discovered Top Trumps, mainly because they released Harry Potter editions with every film that came out. I became quite competitive at this and loved the fact that the categories in each set were the same so you could play a really long game with several packs at the same time.

In fact I've got a feeling that writing this post is going to begin a whole new addiction for me because, while looking for pictures of Harry Potter Top Trump sets, I've discovered that you now make your very own Personalised Top Trumps game. How long has this been a thing? Why did no one tell me about it?! What games can I create? Oh, this could keep me entertained for a while...

Then there's perhaps my favourite card game of all. UNO! We started playing this at uni and I only realised maybe last year that we have never played it the correct way. Apparently you score points for playing certain cards and then the first person to get rid of all their cards gets 500 points. We never played it that way. We just kept playing until everyone got rid of their cards. First person was first place, last person was last place. 

Then there were extra rules that some of us would start adding like jumping in if you have the exact same card that is on top of the discard pile. I think another was passing your cards to another player if a certain card came up. Man, that was infuriating if you only had one left and you ended up with a whole stack to get rid of again!

I think it was probably these extra 'rules' that caused our games to get a little scary at times. I can remember one trip to Centre Parcs where we were all playing around the dining room table. It was the least civilised game of anything that I have ever been involved in. During one particularly competitive round one of us, naming no names (Rebecca!), laid down a bunch of Draw Two and Wild Draw Four cards (I'm sure you can't put those all down at the same same and this was another one of our 'rules') and declared loudly, "EAT SHIT!" to poor Will who had been very close to winning. I honestly don't know how we're all still friends.

Card games seem to be making a come back now, or maybe they never really went away. Whether you like them or not, games like Cards Against Humanity are becoming increasingly popular and it's not hard to see why. Even some of our favourite board games are now available in card form (Monopoly Deal, anyone?) so that you can whip them out at a moment's notice and play virtually anywhere. They are convenient and fun and allow you all to sit in a group together facing each other and conversing while you play.

In a time when we spend the majority of the time glued to a screen, I think it's wonderful that card games are still going strong and I really believe that they are great for bringing people together. With Christmas fast approaching, I'm hoping I can convince my family to play a few classics (maybe not Uno and definitely not Cards Against Humanity) and also discover some new ones that we can enjoy.

I'd love to know what cards game you love, whether it's with a normal set of playing cards or specialist cards like Uno or Monopoly Deal.
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