Last year was the first in many that we didn't meet up with Tom, JK, Nat, and Adrian for a Halloween of over-indulgence and board games, so I'm extremely glad that we managed to pull that back around for 2021. That we could combine it with a new home tour[1] was the cherry on top!
Due to various family (and football) commitments it made the most sense to shift the weekend a little early and start on the Friday, rather than placing it on the spooky night itself, but that ended up working out massively for us in terms of house stuff anyway. After a slightly hectic afternoon juggling work and virtual conferences (and a mad dash of tidying, decorating, and sweet distribution 😉), people began appearing around 7pm. I'd driven the plant-based nachos across that morning, so once we'd all arrived and had our fill of showing off the new house, Alison heated it all up, served it out, and off we went.
We still don't have a TV at the new place, so there was no film, but with a slightly reduced time together I think that was the right move anyway. As it stood, by the time we'd toasted the house with various brought offerings[2], munched through a bowl (or three) of vegetarian nachos, drank down most of the mini-keg of Copper Leaf I'd picked up earlier in the week, and generally caught up, we only really had time for one proper game. This year's latest addition to our collection has been awaiting just such an opportunity, so luckily people felt up for trying Muffin Time. It's an anarchic cluster-frack of a game, but somehow worked out really well, even if a single round ended up lasting well over an hour 😂 Definitely looking forward to pulling it out at games evenings moving forward.
After the madness of Muffin Time people started drifting off to their various sleeping arrangements. I think there'd been a vague feeling that those of us that remained might play a couple of other short games, but in reality we just ended up setting the world to rights whilst finishing our pints and somehow that took us through to 3am 😬 The morning was greeted with some tasty treats and a short walk to a pub and back, plus a few additional rounds of Mind (such a lot of stressful, stressful fun 😉) and (of course) plenty of pick'n'mix[3], before we parted ways and began tidying away the fringes.
It was certainly the most compact Halloween we've done, but I think we successfully hit most of the high notes, and after two years without face-to-face games etc. any amount of festivity was golden 👌 Here's to a less scattergun return to the old form for 2022 🎃
