Week Forty-Six: The Kid Party

First off, the invitation:

Backward, turn backward

O Time in your flight,

And let’s be kids again

Next Friday night.

We’ll all meet at Jones’,

On Twenty-First Street,

Dressed up like kiddies

From heads to feet.

Backward, turn backward,

O Time in your flight,

And meet me at Jones’

Next Friday night.

If the first lines of Cokesbury’s invitation to its Kids Party sound familiar, congratulations. You’re as literate as Cokesbury expects. The lines come from (of course you knew it) Elizabeth Akers Allen’s poem "Rock Me to Sleep," a most sentimental poem about wanting to revert to childhood in order to be relieved of the burden of adulthood. It’s a nice one, if you don’t have a heart of stone.

For those who have a soft heart, read the poem, then watch this:

Gustave Flaubert isn’t the only one capable of making one “apitoyer, faire pleurer les ames sensibles, en etant une moi-meme.” His tale "A Simple Heart" will rip yours on out, if you've got one.

But Cokesbury’s aim is not to make you cry, unless they’re tears of laughter. So, on to the party. Here’s the first game:

Bean Bag Scramble. Bean bags are places on the floor as the group stands in a circle. There should be one less bean bags than players. Lively music should be played, and all should march around in a circle until the music stops. When the music stops all scramble for the bean bags. The player who fails to get a bag is out. The bags are again placed in the center, but one is taken away. Again they scramble, and the one who fails to get one is dropped. If it is desirous to speed up this game more than one bag may be removed at a time. Finally there will be only two with one bag. Give a prize to the one who gets the last bag.

Be sure to have plenty of Band-Aids and pressure bandages on hand, and knowing someone who can set a broken nose using two pencils and a sturdy fellow to stop the victim from squirming might also be appropriate.

I almost forgot! The costumes!

Any kind of children’s clothes or imitation of them would be suitable. Short dresses or rompers would be suitable for girls, such as rompers as those worn at Girl Scout camps. Another suggestion for girls would be to dress as babies, with some kind of improvised baby dress. Also they might dress like a schoolgirl with ribbons in the hair. Suggestions for boys would be short trousers, overalls, and barefooted.

BTW: Be careful how you Google “rompers” these days. Apparently, they’ve become a hot item, outside the world of babies’ “onesies,” especially in the world of Victoria’s Secret. Now, where’s my bottle of eye bleach?

On to the next game. It probably sounds familiar because you played the same thing at Christmas. Oh well, if it works one, it'll work again, right?

The Doll Shop. One guest is shopkeeper and another the customer. The purpose of the game is to divide the party into two groups and at the same time provide a lot of action and fun for all. All of the guests are dolls and may be brought out and displayed at the will of the shopkeeper. All must be displayed before the game ends. The customer tells the shopkeeper that he wants to buy some dolls, but that he does not want silly dolls that grin all the time. He wants sober dolls. The shopkeeper argues that it is the mark of good breeding for a doll to smile. The object is for the shopkeeper to make the person who is being displayed as a doll to smile. If he succeeds, that person will remain on his side. If he cannot be made to smile in about thirty seconds, the customer gets him. The shopkeeper may go through all kinds of antics to make the player smile, such as making him or her to say Mamma and Papa or tickling the doll under the chin or saying crazy things about them. If the shopkeeper has a strong imagination and a sense of humor, this can be made extremely funny.

And why divide the group? For the bone-breaking tug-of-war, of course. Remember, you’ve got a First Aid kit and nose setter on call. Tug away.

When all have been displayed and the groups divided, have a tug of war. This may be done by the shopkeeper and the customer joining hands and all the dolls catching each other around the waist or by the shoulders and trying to pull the other group across a line.

To follow is a series of Children’s Games, including Drop the Handkerchief, Walking to Jerusalem (which is what they called musical chairs before Madelin Murray O'Hair got a hold of it), Farmer in the Dell, Last Couple Out, and this gem: The Cat and the Mouse:

The players all form a circle with exception of two. One of these is the cat and the other the rat. The rat is inside the circle and the cat outside. The cat meows and starts to chase the rat. The players are to aid the rat and try to prevent the cat from catching the rat. They raise their arms for the rat to go through and bar the passage of the cat with them. When the rat is caught he chooses one from the circle to become the cat, and takes his place, while the one who was the cat becomes the rat.

For the most anachronistic game of the evening, try this:

Balloon Race. Get some barrel hoops for goals. Strings should be tied to the balloons and small sand bags fastened to the strings so that the balloons will not be entirely blown away. Each player is provided with a fan, and with the fan he must by fanning the balloon make it go through the goal. Of course this game may be played with a large number of players, and the more the better.

Whenever a game description starts with “Get some barrel hoops” you know you’re going to have a fun time. Of course, in this day and age, we’d use hula hoops. Unless, of course, you’ve got the barrel hoops, or know someone who does.

One final game (and a final opportunity for your designated Nose-Setter):

Candy Scramble. Place bags of candy, lollipops, and small boxes of candy in the center of the floor. The players stand around in a circle and at the signal scramble for the candy. They proceed to eat the candy they get.

If you ask me, the “kiddie” attitude displayed in this game is even more of an effrontery to kiddom than “Chubbsy-Ubbsy” here.

And that’s it. Serve the leftovers from the last game as refreshments, or break out some ice cream and cones, popcorn balls, and animal cookies. Or, if you trust your friends, allow them to pop their own corn or toast marshmallows.

That's it. Next week, a rather staid and moribund Box Supper and Cake Walk. Hope to see you there. With that kind of sales pitch, who'd miss it?

Bonus Party: It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like, Well, Christmas

From its first sentence, you can tell Cokesbury’s Christmas Party was written in a more innocent, less politically-correct time:

Every group of young people, every Sunday school class, and every society expects to have a party for Christmas.

It’s actually kinda cute, reading that sentence these days. You wouldn’t dare write such a thing today, for fear of offending someone outside of the everys mentioned because the exceptions are no longer content – or mature – enough to brush off this innocent Judeo-Christian all-inclusiveness and instead scream not for inclusion of their belief or non-belief, but for the abolition of what was believed and celebrated by

SMACK!

Sorry. Feeling a little persecuted these days. But still, you have to agree that sentence today would either be replaced by this:

Non-progressive, easily-offended conservative Republican young people (all three of them, two of them named Biffy), conscripted enrollees in parochial, partiarchally-oppressive Jebus-schools, and societies embodied by the cranky, evil-looking old people taking the Pledge of Allegiance as they begin their Christopher Mott Society meeting at the beginning of the Dick van Dyke film Cold Turkey expect to have a Christmas party in which they can espouse their evil, monocultural beliefs in order to perpetuate oppression of atheists, progressives and other open-minded folks who see Jebusism for the crock and fraud that it is, so they may as well celebrate stupidly. Because they’re progressively and morally and ethically bankrupt individuals who will die and go to hell, that is, if there were such a place, you know, which really isn’t a progressive thought, so let’s not even go there. But we’ve got a urinating dog and Bob Newhart! What could be better?

Or this:

[Embarrassed silence, feet shuffling, um, let’s not offend anyone by suggesting, you know, anything about Christ -- ]

SMACK!

I know. I suppose I’m feeling a bit persecuted these days. But on to the party:

Three nights before Christmas,

When all through the town,

Wise men and wise women

Will be looking around

For evenings of fun

And places of cheer,

Don’t look any further,

Come right over here.

For Thursday at eight,

The time has been set;

Bring a gift for another,

And see what you get.

Then, Cokesbury advises, “Give the address of the place where the party is to be held.” Don’t want people wandering the town searching in vain for your party now, do you?

Here’s the first game, a real corker:

The Doll Shop. All the even numbers are placed on one side and the odd numbers on the other. Two persons are selected from the even number group to be the shopkeepers, and two persons are selected from the odd number group to be the doll shoppers. After the game has been played for five or six minutes, depending on how much time the leader wishes to take up with it, a change is made, and the odd group become the shopkeepers and the even group the doll shoppers, and an equal amount of time should be allowed the odd group. The object of the game is to see who can have the largest number on their side when the time is up. The game proceeds in the following manner: The buyers come to the doll shop and say they are interested in buying some dolls. They do not want dolls that are too serious. All the dolls that they take must be laughing, giggling dolls. The shopkeeper then demonstrates the dolls, which are the persons on his side. They walk with stiff legs and try to imitate dolls. The purchaser asks questions about them such as, “Will this doll go to sleep?” “Does this doll say Mama?” The shopkeeper must demonstrate by making the doll say “Mama.” Any other crazy question may be asked by the shopper, and if the doll laughs he gets it. If the doll remains serious, he goes back to his side and another is demonstrated. After sides have been changed and the odd side has had an equal amount of time, a prize may be given to the winning side, such as a small jar of candy, or a bag of peanuts, or something that can be divided among the players of the group.

Or, they could just pull a Dick Van Dyke/Sally Anne Howes (so you don’t think I’m down on Mr. Van Dyke):



Bonus points to the shopper who can bombast as much as Baron Bomburst.

Now it’s on to a more sophisticated game:

Hang Up the Christmas Stocking. A mantel has been drawn on a sheet with crayons or lamp black. A place is marked for the stocking. Each guest is blindfolded and turned around and must walk to the mantel and pin the stocking the first place he touches. Five a prize to the one who gets the stocking nearest to the right place.

And this is why the Jebus-lovers are so feared these days. They get to five a prize, you know. I’m sure it’s a typo. I’ve never fived a prize my entire life.

Here’s another game sure to offend the atheists on your non-denominational winter holiday list:

Christmas Stagecoach. This is played like the game of Stagecoach. One person reads the Christmas poem, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” as the other players sit in a circle with all chairs full. The players are given words in advance, for example, house, mouse, reindeer, stockings, toys, etc. As the poem is read, the one who has the word must get up and turn around. At any time the person who is reading may yell “Santa Claus,” and when he does so all must change seats. If the leader secures a seat, the one left over becomes the reader.

(Yes, yes, I know the poem by Clement Clarke Moore is really called “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” but “Twas” is an alternate title, so don’t get all knotted up about it. I guarantee there’ll be other stuff you can get knotted up about here. This is, after all, the main, central celebration of the Jebus-freakin’ capitalism-lovin’ hypocritical hypocritin’ booger-beings.)

Of course, there are three ways you can do this game. You can do it straight right out of the Cokesbury Bible (I hope I didn’t offend anyone by using that word – straight – because I suppose folks could use it queer right out of the Cokesbury Bible . . . what? Why are you all leaving? Was it something I said?). Or, alternatively, you could do it in a way that makes people move whenever they hear an offensive word or idea in the poem. Or you could substitute the Larry the Cable Guy version:



Uncle Jessee. Whooooooo.

And yet another game:

Christmas Presents. These have been brought by each guest and placed on the tree and numbered. The number should be concealed, or perhaps it would be better to have the presents put in a basket and numbered by the leader and then have the basket brought in just before time to give out the presents. Of course there will be a lot of crazy presents. Nothing should cost over ten or twenty-five cents. As the numbers are called, the one holding that number comes up and gets his package and opens it and plays with it. This will cause a lot of fun.

Confession time: My family, for years, played a similar game, but with white elephant gifts specifically chosen for hilarity. The most popular was a pair of Argentinian underwear – a pair of yellow briefs – that appeared from year to year. Once they were used to construct Noah’s Ark. Another year they were artfully folded into a rosette. They did cause a lot of fun. This game is actually worth doing, folks.

Now it’s refreshment time. You already know, of course, what Cokesbury’s first suggestion is. Say it with me:

Sandwiches and coffee.

Or, alternately, Christmas cookies cut in the shape of stars. Or coffee and fruit cake with red and green candies. Or whatever it is that Jebus-freaks like to eat this time of year. Babies or something.

Week Twenty-Seven: Gipsy Party

Okay, so this is a Victorian-era photo.

Still gets the stereotypical gypsy idea across.

Interesting concept here. In reading Cokesbury's Gipsy Party, the suggestions are that Gypsies steal, stargaze, tell stories, steal, tell and keep secrets, steal, kidnap, steal, sing, and, what else? Oh yeah. Steal. So buckle in.

Maybe this music will keep the sting off:

	Anonyme - Bubak and Hungaricus Early 18th Century Gypsy Music .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Since this is a costume party, on with the costumes:

Costumes may be made from red or yellow cheesecloth. Or at least headbands, sashes, and scarfs can be made from these materials. Further suggestions for the girls would be beach pajamas, Spanish costumes, with hair loose or braided down the back. A timbrel would add to the effect. Use plenty of beads, earrings, bracelets, or other jewelry. Boys could wear loud colored shirts, bandana handkerchiefs, slouch hats, large earrings, such as brass curtain rings tied on to the ears, mustached paste on, or masks. Plenty of color should be put on the cheeks with rouge or cocoa.

Rouge or cocoa. Really? Let's move on to the kidnapping.

Guests should be met at the door or entrance to the place where the party is held by rough-looking gipsies with knives or revolvers. Each guest is kidnapped and taken before the gipsy king and initiated. To do this he is made to get on his knees, put his head to the ground, and say:

I know my mind,

And I know my heart.

I know I have a foolish part.

This should be repeated three times as the guest bows before the king. He is then initiated into the order of gipsies.

I suggest trying this first with your uberconservative friends just too see how many heads you can make explode. For added interest, have them utter some simple fealty oaths. Make sure to bring plenty of dropcloths.

And what's up with that initiation oath? Are they saying whomever chooses to be sworn in as a gipsy is foolish? Or that the act of being sworn in is foolish? Or that you're a moron for making your friends do this in the first place? Jury's still out on that one, if you ask me.

And, yes, I know they make a big deal about becoming a gipsy, meeting the gipsy king, et cetera, in Hunchback of Notre Dame. Just because it's in literatchoooor doesn't mean it makes sense.

This king appears confused. It's a sceptre, buddy. What do you do with it? Well, now I'm all confused.

Now, on to the bartering. Gipsies barter, right?

Each guest has been notified in advance that he is to bring some article wrapped in a package. A price limit should be set on this of ten cents or twenty-five cents. After all have been initiated, the elader then tells the guests that, as they are now gipsies, they must trade, for gipsies trade. Each person it to talk up the article in his package wthout revealing its identity. When the trading has been going on for about ten minutes, the leader blows the whistle, and all open their packages to discover the misfits. Usually, there will be noise maker, mechanical toys, teething rings, candy with salt and pepper in it, et cetera.

And then with the bartering over, the stealing begins, right?

The leader should announce that another characteristic of gipsies is that they steal, and that, as they have been initiated into the order of gipsies, they will have the privilege during the evening of stealing. Also a prize will be given to the one who can display, at the close of the evening, the largest number of articles stolen. The leader should explain that stealing does not mean taking by force, but that the gipsies have light fingers. This stealing should continue while the games are being played, and later in the evening after the games are over there should be a time to return stolen property.

So, in addition to your uberconservative friends, invite those who naturally have sticky fingers. Remind your technologically-advanced guests that this is not a party to which they should bring cell phones, iPods, fancy watches, or anything they don't want to get back in a hurry. I'm not saying your friends are thieves, but with some people, it only takes a little party suggestion like, well, that stealing is okay, to send some of your more questionable friends over the edge. Or if you have technologically advanced but rather forgetful friends, encourage them to bring all their toys plus any extra stuff you've seen lying around their house. If you're going to steal, steal big, I say. And if they complain, say, "Well, gipsies steal, no?" Have fun with it.

And with the singing. This is the song Cokesbury suggests you sing:



Be sure to book a good blues combo for accompaniment. Or invite an adequate accordionist. It's touches like this that make for a good gipsy party, and might possibly convince some of your more impressionable guests that you really are gipsies so all the stealing is okay and they won't ask for their stuff back.

On to the games. Cokesbury suggests a lot of games. I'll give you two:

Handkerchief Laughs. The leader throws the handkerchief into the air and calls the name or number of a person in the circle, and that person must laugh while the handkerchief is in the air and cease immediately when it falls to the ground. If that person fails to laugh while the handkerchief is in the air, or laughs when the handkerchief is not in the air, he must be It. In order to accomplish this end It may make a motion as though he were going to throw the handkerchief and then fail to throw it. The game may be varied by designating certain kinds of laughs, such as nervous laugh, coquettish laugh, boisterous laugh, horse laugh, silly laugh, stage laugh, giggle, et cetera.

Kinda sounds like the "I Love to Laugh" scene from Mary Poppins.



If my father were participating in this game, you'd have to add another laugh category, that being "laughing silently while tears roll down your cheeks." Try imitating that, Karl Marx.

Next we go on to gipsy fortunes whihc, according to Cokesbury, have little to do with love, warts, the removal of either love or warts, or anything generally involving curses, frogs,a nd other cliches. Nor do they include "Your cockney accent will be hackneyed, but the film you're in will be beloved by all."

Fortunes. The easiest way to accomplish this is to have the fortunes prepared in advance and placed in capsules. These capsules should be about one inch in length and the fortune typewritten and rolled up and placed inside. Players draw for their fortunes, and at the signal open the capsule and read aloud. These fortunes may be written with a pen, using lemon juice for ink. This makes an excellent invisible ink, and this may be passed to the Gipsy Queen, who holds it over the candle, and the words of the fortune will appear on what seemed a blank piece of paper. The following are suggestions for written fortunes:

For the Boys

You'll go to college and get a degree,
and a brilliant man you'll surely be.

You'll be a preacher, a man good and true;
You'll fall in love with a girl named Sue.

You'll be a pilot and fly a ship like Lindy;
You'll have the reputation of being rather windy.

You're going to be a railroad man,
and be the superintendent if you can.

You're going to be a farmer and raise corn and wheat,
and when you are old you'll live on Easy Street.

For the Girls

You are going far away to a university;
when you return a teacher you will be.

You are going to keep house in a bungalow,
with a cat -- and a husband too, you know.

In far-off China you'll spend your life
As a much-loved missionary's wife.

You're going to live alone, just as happy as can be,
with your cat and your parrot and your little cup of tea.

You'll be a lady lawyer and read law books,
and attract a lot of clients with your good looks.

Ah, the aspirations of the 1930s. Adventure, money, and preaching for the men, housekeeping, spinsterism and attracting clients as a lawyer not because you're smart but because you're a looker for the ladies. So who says the world has turned upside down in the past thirty years?

On to the final game, which combines two well-known gipsy traits -- secrets and, you guessed it, stealing.

Secrets. Gipsies have secrets. Divide crowd into groups. If the party is large, however, it would be best to divide into four groups. Each group selects a captain. Each group selects some object to be stolen while on some imaginary raid to town. Each group keeps this objet a secret from the other bands. A member of each camp is sent over to the rival camp to be questioned. They try to get out of him the name of the object he is going to steal. The visitor must answer the questions by "Yes" or "No." If the group guesses the object after five questions, they retain the visitor in their camp. If they fail to guess after five questions, the visitor returns and a visitor is sent to his camp from the rival group. In case the ojbect is guessed, another object must be selected for the second visitor.

Yeah, it's not much of a game. But it does involve stealing. And gipsies steal, right. Damn right they do:

Returning Stolen Property. This should be given some time, and all stolen articles should be identified and returned to the woner and a prize given to the one who can show the largest collection.

All right. All that's left are refreshments. Hope you've got a lot of time on your hands:

Refreshments should consist of gipsy goulash and coffee, to which each one serves himself. paper cups and plates may be used. the following is a recipe for the goulash, which, of course, must be cooked before the party and just heated up on the fire at the party:

Cook a large piece of beef or veal [stolen by preference, ed.] in a fireless cooker or over a slow fire until about half done. Season this with salt, pepper, onions, and bay leaf. Remove from the fire and cut meat into pieces suitable for serving and return to the fire. Add about one half can of tomatoes with additional seasoning if necessary, and enough uncooked rice to absorb the stock and the tomato juice. Cook until rice has had time to thoroughly cook. if cooked on top of the stove, care must be taken that it does not stick to the bottom of the kettle. A little red pepper and more onions may be added if desired.

Yes, it's goulash for the WASPs, devoid of spice so as not to offend the palate with flavor.

Okay, you're done for another week. Tune in next time for the Celebrities Party, in which you'll ask your guests to dress up like contemporary (at least for 1932) celebrities, including Herbert Hoover, Mrs. Herbert Hoover, Will Rogers, Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Charlie Chaplin, Henry Ford and the ever-popular Billy Sunday. Huzzah!