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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.