Who doesn't enjoy winning free
stuff? Not I, even if it's only a plastic whistle shaped like a football. The
winning is made even better when you have beat all the other children to claim
the coveted reward.
There are two games that are
guaranteed to bring out any child's latent competitive streak, for better or
worse – Musical Chairs, and Pass the Parcel. I was never massively good at
Musical Chairs, being neither too athletic nor handy with my fists, so sod Musical
Chairs. But since Pass the Parcel requires no skill at all, and is little more
than a game of chance, I was pretty good at it.
(Disclaimer - none of these children are me. I was never clever enough to be a scout.)
Winning at Pass the Parcel
depended on two things. Firstly, on whether or not it's your party, and
therefore your parent controlling the music. Secondly, on whether you got the
parcel at just the right time to be able to slow down to not passing it
at all, or to be able to snatch it from the child next to you at the right
moment. Either move generally sets off a reaction like this -
It's also wise to time these
moves, waiting until a reasonable number of layers of wrapping paper have been
removed. If you perform the ‘too slow’ or the ‘too fast’ move more than a
couple of times in each game, people will complain and you might end up being
'out' - the ultimate dishonour. To avoid this, use your moves sparingly. Please
see below for recommended number of layers.
Recommended number of layers.
Of course, the above moves can
only be executed if the parent in charge of the music has decided to be
scrupulously fair and have their back to the group, thus avoiding the
temptation to just let their child win. If the parent insists on watching you
all like a hawk, never mind – at least you still have your party bag, which is
often better than a crappy whistle. After all, whistles aren’t full of cake.
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