Tweet

How to Do Things

Games and Entertaining     |     St. Valentine's Day

Special Occasions

February Entertaining

     The birthdays of Washington and Lincoln, together with St. Valentine's day, afford many suggestions for the hostess.  For Lincoln's birthday, the guests might come dressed as members of the G. A. R. and their families.  War songs and plantation melodies could be sung, and some one could read the Gettysburg address aloud.  Decorate the table with a cheap plaster bust of Lincoln, with streamers of red, white and blue crepe paper, extending to the corners.  Serve army beans (baked), salt horse (corned beef), pickles, hard tack (biscuits), cake and coffee.

St. Valentine Entertaining

     Decide on your date and send out invitations from ten days to two weeks in advance.  If the fourteenth is the chosen day, a roll of red wallpaper, cut into hearts of various sizes, will help along in your decorations, and an occasional arrow of gilt paper may be thrust through the hearts.  There are other suitable decorations--favors, napkins, etc., to be had from paper manufacturers for a small sum, and you can use the heart device through the entire evening.  Start with a heart hunt, using paper hearts, candy hearts, etc., with a prize for the one finding the largest number, and a mitten for the booby prize.  The larger hearts can be cut in two pieces, and these are matched to form partners.  Pass tablets and pencils, and ask each man to write a proposal of marriage to his ideal, while each girl writes an acceptance to her ideal.  These should be well mixed up and then drawn from a hat, and a proposal and acceptance read together.  For refreshments serve creamed chicken in heart-shaped paper cases, or heart-shaped sandwiches, little cakes cut heart-shaped, or a large layer cake with heart-shaped candies to decorate the top, and a ring, a thimble and a piece of money hidden in the cake.  The one who gets the ring will be married first, the thimble goes to the one who will remain single, while the money brings wealth.

A Valentine Engagement Luncheon

     Last year a girl who was about to announce her engagement, did so on St. Valentine's day.  She entertained her girl friends at luncheon, the table being suitably decorated with a centerpiece that told the story.  Ferns, asparagus vine and red tulle were prettily massed around a black velvet cat emerging from a bag of red silk.  Around its neck was a red ribbon, and hanging from this was a white card containing the names of the newly betrothed pair.  "The cat was out of the bag" at last.  Heart-shaped place cards, strings of red paper hearts draped around the sides of the table and from the chandelier to the corners of the table, and sandwiches, cakes and candy in heart shapes, all carried out the idea.

How to Do Things

St. Valentine's Day     |     Games and Entertaining

St. Valentine Games

     Follow the heart idea in your games.  Old Maids may be played with a set of cards each of which is pasted on a red cardboard heart.  Play "Hearts Up" with a tiny heart, just as you play "Up Jenkins."  Have the men guests each write a description of the ideal lady of his heart, and the girls in turn write descriptions of their ideal mates.

A Valentine Soap-Bubble Game

     Suspend a large sheet across one corner of the room and on it paste three large red paper hearts, numbering them one, two, three.  Above each one write a small verse.

     The first: 
Blow your bubble right on here,
And you'll be married before another year.

     Above the second write:
To be engaged this very week
Number two is the one to take.

     Above the third write:
A sad, an awful fate awaits the one who seeks me,
For he or she will ever a spinster or a bachelor be.

     On a small table nearby have a large bowl filled with soap-suds and also clay pipes decorated with hearts.  Small paper fans should be given to each player, who first blows the bubbles off his pipe, then tries to fan them on the heart where he wishes them to go.  Most will try to avoid heart number three.

Your Heart on Your Sleeve

     Wearing your heart on your sleeve:  One person out of the assembled company retires from the room.  Those remaining behind choose a state of mind, such as "Joy."  The person outside is called back.  When he counts 1, 2, 3, those taking part in the game strike an attitude representing "Joy."  The person called in then tries to guess what they are representing.  The first person who laughs while the attitude is being assumed is sent out after the player guesses the word--to be "it" next time.  Each guesser has three chances; if all three guesses are wrong he goes out  again.

     Some suggestions for words that can be acted out are:  Anger, indifference, jealousy, pity, curiosity, stupidity, pride, expectancy, disgust, fear, self-consciousness, dignity.

     To match partners, provide a basket of cardboard hearts and, on arrival, require each boy to punch one of them with a key in his possession.  Distribute the punched hearts among the girls.  Find partners by matching keys and the keyholes.

An Evening with Shakespeare

     Should you be entertaining on St. Valentine's day, heart-shaped programmes with pencil attached should be provided for each guest.  Upon the prgrammes are written the following questions, the answers to which are all names of Shakespeare's plays:

1.  Who were the hero and heroine?
2.  What mythological characters did they resemble?
3.  What did their courtship resemble?
4.  Of whome did he buy the ring?
5.  What did he write her?
6.  When were they married?
7.  Who acted as best man and maid of honor?
8.  Who were the ushers?
9.  What black man tended the door at the wedding?

How to Do Things

Games and Entertaining     |     Washington's Birthday

10.  What ladies gave a recitation?
11.  What three kings (relatives) attended?
12.  Where did they make their home?
13.  What kingly thing did he do that caused their first quarrel?
14.  What did he later say about it?
15.  What did her temper resemble?
16.  What did he consider his duty after marriage?
17.  What did he tell his servant to do?
18.  What did she give him?
19.  What did their marriage prove to be?
20.  What was their daily life like?
21.  What man with a Roman nose caused them to forget their troubles?
22.  What would you say of their marriage in the end?

Answers:

1.  Romeo and Juliet.
2.  Venus and Adonis.
3.  A Midsummer Night's Dream.
4.  The Merchant of Venice.
5.  Sonnets.
6.  Twelfth Night.
7.  Antony and Cleopatra.
8.  Two Gentlemen of Verona.
9.  Othello.
10.  The Merry Wives of Windsor.
11.  King Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VIII.
12.  Hamlet.
13.  King Lear.
14.  Much Ado About Nothing.
15.  The Tempest.
16.  The Taming of the Shrew.
17.  Julius!  Seize her!  (Julius Caesar)
18.  Measure for Measure.
19.  The Comedy of Errors.
20.  Love's Labour Lost.
21.  Titus Adronicus.
22.  All's Well That Ends Well.

     To match partners, each young man is given a heart-shaped card upon which is written the name of some lover famous in history or fiction; the girls are given similar cards, with the names of the ladies to whom these heroes were devoted.  Of course each lover seeks his lass and thus becomes her partner.  The following are offered as suggestions:  John Smith and Pocahontas, Paul and Virginia, Romeo and Juliet, Hiawatha and Minnehaha, John Alden and Priscilla, Orpheus and Eurydice, Dante and Beatrice, Isaac and Rebecca, Petruchio and Katharine, Gabriel and Evangeline, Pygmalion and Galatea, The Judge and Maud Muller, Touchstone and Audrey.

Valentine Proposals

     As the guests assemble, give each gentleman a slip of paper bearing the name of a woman, and the ladies the name of some man noted in fiction as a lover.  Thus the one who has Romeo hunts for the lady who has Juliet on her paper.  When all know who their partners are, the ladies must evade every attempt on the part of the gentleman to propose to them during the evening.

     A prize is given to the gentleman who has succeeded in  proposing, and to the girl who has eluded all efforts of her partner by her wit and sagacity.

For Washington's Birthday

     Have a colonial supper for the twenty-second, the guests to be dressed in old-time cosutmes, the rooms lighted with candles and sperm-oil lamps.  A collection of relics may be arranged for, old songs and

How to Do Things

April First     |     Games and Entertaining

games indulged in, and a real colonial supper served.  Serve tea and old-time cookies, and if it is a money-making affair, sell tea and Japanese china on commission.

For St. Patrick's Day

     Cut from green paper a number of pieces approximately representing the map of Ireland.  There are as many of these as guests, and to each a little pencil is attached with ribbon.  Each player is given one, which he or she is called upon to fill out with the names and positions of the various large cities, rivers, mountains, etc.  A book bound in green makes a suitable prize.

Chalking the Pig's Eye

     If possible, draw a pig on the floor; if the floor is not suitable, draw it upon a blackboard, or, using charcoal, upon a sheet.  Then blindfold each player, turn him around three times and tell him to mark the pig's eye with a cross.  A variation on this is to have the players draw the tail, which should be omitted in the original drawing.  Still another fun-making scheme is to pass sheets of paper and have each person, while blindfolded, or with closed eyes, draw a pig.  Suitable prizes for such contests are the little brown earthenware pig money banks, to be had for a few pennies each.

April First Entertaining

Some clever games for entertaining on All Fool's day may include the "Foolish Walk," for which pile sofa­ pillows, books, plants and anything in the way of obstruction on the floor; then tell a certain person to mark each article carefully in mind, blind­ fold him and tell him to walk across the room. In the meantime, after the victim is blindfolded, the objects have been noiselessly removed, leav­ing the floor clear. It is amusing in the extreme to see the blind one mak­ing his way, and when the bandage Is removed the astonishment is great.

This may be followed by a guessing contest. Provide cards and pencils for each guest, with numbers for each course of a dinner menu. Have your courses prepared beforehand, bring each one in separately, and after two minutes remove it. The contestants write down the name of each course as they guess it, and a prize is given to the one making the largest number of correct guesses. The following "dishes" are suggested: Oysters, short­ pointed ends of blue crayons (blue­ points); soup, small brown cardboard turtles, in a soup-plate of water; rel­ishes, toy or paper red dishes (rad­ishes); crackers, tiny fire-crackers; meat; a toy lamb in a small pan; poultry, a map of Turkey with the name erased; dessert, a curl of hair (lady-lock) or a strawberry emery in a dish of ice (frozen strawberry); cake, the ends of sulphur matches (devil's food); nuts, the iron nuts used in bolts and machinery. Decor­ate with vegetables instead of flowers, and amongst the refreshments have a dish of chocolates, which are noth­ing but cotton-batting, dipped in melted chocolate.

Hallowe'en [Halloween]

Old games, old customs, old tricks and charms are appropriate for Hal­lowe'en entertaining, and the gathering can take the character of a Hard Times Social, the guests wearing their oldest clothes (a prize may be given for the very oldest), and it the company can be accommodated in

332

large kitchen, so much the better.

Use wrapping paper and the cheapest envelopes procurable for the invitations, and arrange the table with white oilcloth or a colored cotton cover. For a centerpiece fill a toy wooden washtub with rich red apples. Around this arrange candles stuck in potatoes or carrots for holders. Tin pie plates, or the wooden picnic kind, may be used, with paper nap­ kins and tin cups. Refreshments may be simple-sandwiches, salad, salted or plain peanuts, gingerbread, doughnuts, cookies, molasses candy and coffee; or, if a hot supper is de­sired, you can choose between naked beans or scalloped oysters, rolls, pickles, individual pumpkin pies, cot­ fee and nuts.

Corn husks will hold salad. The nuts should be brought to the table in a great wooden bowl. This should be placed in the center of the table and the guests will be asked to help themselves. However, some will be found tacked to the bottom of the bowl, two of the guests will find their nuts fastened together by means of a tiny wire - or thread, and all kinds of confusion will result. When the nuts are opened they will be found but empty shells, the kernels having been removed to make way for small bits of paper on which is printed the fortune of the finder.

Hallowe'en Fortunes [Halloween Fortune Cookies]

Here are some Hallowe'en fortunes, short and optimistic, that may be used:

• For you will come bright, happy days.
• You will never marry unless you are suited.
• Profit will attend your ventures.
• Your companion in life will be ever true.
• You have genius, but must develop it.
• You will not become wealthy, but you will never want.
• Early in life you will know honors.
• You will wed the one you love.
• Continue unafraid of work--it is not afraid of you.
• Of course there are sorrows In your life, but they are balanced by joys
• Never spend money foolishly--you can not earn it foolishly.
• You will travel extensively.
• Your wealth will come from the earth.
• A companion worthy of you will enter your life

Hallowe'en Suggestions [Halloween Suggestions]

At one successful Hallowe'en affair the guests entered the house through a cellar door. The cellar was lighted by means of pumpkin lanterns, and a ghost met them and silently motioned them toward the cellar stairs. In­ stead of ducking for apples, which wets the hair, have two pieces of stick, sharpened to a point at each end, and these nailed together to form an X. On the four points are stuck, respectively, an apple, a potato, a piece of soap and a piece of candle. The X has a piece of string caught into the nail in the middle, and is suspended from the chandelier and set spinning. Then you stand around and try to bite at the apple as the cross spins. If you bite the apple it is a sign of a rich and early marriage; if the potato you marry a farmer; the piece of soap means you marry a poor man, and the candle is to light you sitting up waiting for your husband to come home.

Hallowe'en [Halloween]

The old tricks never lose interest, but for the sake of novelty may be changed. A piece of candle in the tub of water may take the place of the apples for which young people enjoy "bobbing." Provide a package of the little paste alphabets used in soup. Place these in a bowl, allow each guest to draw a handful and scat­ter them in a tub of water; the com­binations they will form, suggest the name of the wife or husband to be.

For hallowe'en burn all the letters of the alphabet on a big pumpkin, with a hot poker. Then hang it in the doorway, twirl rapidly and have each guest try to stab a letter with a hatpin. The letter hit is supposed to be the initial letter of one's future mate. If none is hit, celibacy is the fate in store.

Costumes for Hallowe'en [Antique Halloween Costumes]

The list of costumes is endless. Sheets and pillow-cases, with a white


Witch

or death's-head mask, are easily arranged for a ghost costume for either boys or girls. A witch requires a dark woollen skirt, a black cape and a wig of coarse hair hanging in strings from beneath a black pointed hat. She car­ries a broom, of course, and a black cat made of paper may be perched on her shoulder.

Topsy has her face blackened, wears a wig of black hair done in little plaits all over her head, a short­ waisted and short-skirted dress of gay cotton, striped stockings and old shoes.

A gipsy girl wears a red petticoat, a black velvet bodice with a silk scarf


Gipsy

around her waist, a gaily colored handkerchief around the neck and a broad banded bracelet on the arm. She carries a tambourine.

With a checked gingham dress, a huge apron and a bandana handker­chief over the head, anyone will pass for a colored "mammy."

For a rag-doll costume, take two pieces of muslin each about fourteen inches long and eleven Wide, and round the corners. Sew up on three sides; paint nose, eyebrows and mouth on it and cut out places for the eyes; slip this over the head. Wear white cotton gloves, and wear stockings over your shoes and a cotton dress made

334

with a long skirt. Practice walking in a loose-jointed, floppy way, to carry out the illusion.

A baby costume is easily fashioned by wearing a rather full nightdress over long white petticoats. A mask representing a baby face, a bib, a white cap and rattle complete the cos­tume.

As for the boys, a slender lad dressed as a girl is always a success. Uncle Sam, Indians, cowboys and pi­ rates are always popular and are easily copied from pictures.

How to Do Things

Games and Entertaining     |     Christmas Holidays

Christmas Holiday Entertaining

     Delightful entertainments may be given during the holiday season, when the young folks are home from school or college.  A gathering of friends and neighbors, old and young, may be entertaining and instructive and yet inexpensive.  The decorations consist of the Christmas greens, bells, etc., and the tree may be the center of attraction.  There are many pretty cards at this season which may be used for invitations and place cards, the shops are full of toys and novelties which may be used as favors and prizes, and the refreshments may be very simple,--home-made candies and Christmas cakes playing an important part in your menu.

A Twelve-Month Social

     All young people, and some not so young, love to "dress up," and an interesting affair can be made out of a Twelve-month Social. Ask your friends to come dressed or wearing some device to represent the months of the year, and offer prizes for the best ideas.  January may come as Father Time; February offers a wide choice with its famous birthdays and the feast of St. Valentine; March offers the hare and "Paddy;" April brings the Easter bride; May is the blossom month and is also sacred to our dead heroes; June brings roses; July is, of course, patriotic; August offers the summer girl; with September comes Labor Day and the "whining schoolboy, with his satchel, and shining morning face."  We now remember Columbus in October because of the anniversary of his discovery of America; while November brings us Thanksgiving day, instituted by the Pilgrims; and the year winds up very properly with Christmas and Santa Claus.

Charades

     A Christmas or New Year's dinner could be enacted in charade form, the audience to guess the viands as acted.  Give each person a copy of the menu, with only the courses written thereon.  These are filled out, as guessed, with a prize for the best.  The menu is as follows:

     Soup, noodle (new-dull); roast, turkey (Turk-key); gravy, giblet (jib-let); vegetables, potato (pot-eight-o); cauliflower, (call-I-flower); succotash

How to Do Things

Making a Megaphone     |     What Boys Can Do

(suck-at-ash); jelly, current (currant); dessert, plum pudding (plumb); beverage, coffee (cough-fee).  The old game of "Consequences" may be varied for the occasion, called "Resolutions," and played accordingly.  If the party is held on New Year's eve it may wind up with the birth of the New Year, finding all standing in a circle with joined hands.  As the clock strikes twelve, the company sings, "Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot," and then with a handshake and a greeting for every one, the party breaks up.

Game of Resolutions For New Year's

     Provide guests with papers and pencils.  Begin by having ten letters of the alphabet read to the company.  These are to be copied down and the guests must choose a new year's resolution of ten words, each beginning with one of the letters used in order in which they have been given out.  These impromptu resolutions when read, will cause much amusement.