Looking for a hyggelig festive game? While I do love a quiz at Christmas, there comes a point during every party where entertainment of a less cerebral nature becomes appropriate. The Candy Game Game ticks all the boxes for festive hygge fun; kids love it, you can make the rules as simple or as complicated as you like, and up to 13 people can play with just one pack of cards.
The easiest way to explain it is as a game of Musical Chairs, using sweets instead of chairs, and cards instead of music. The objective is to get four of a kind and swipe a candy cane, and thus avoid being the last person left without one.
- Lay the candy canes on the table, ensuring there is one less cane than the number of players; hence five players will require four canes. Move any glasses or candles out of the way (you’ll thank me later). If you don’t have any candy canes, spoons make a good alternative).
- Choose one person as the dealer, who then deals each player four cards. Any left over cards become his draw pile.
- The dealer draws a card, looks at it and then discards one from his hand of five to the player on his left, before drawing another from the pile, looking at and discarding again; he should keep drawing and discarding as fast as possible.
- Meanwhile the player to his left looks at his hand of five and then discards one to his left, and so on. Keep playing as fast as you can; inevitably there will be a blockage with one person taking much longer to make decisions, and at this point it is perfectly acceptable to bellow at them impatiently.
- The last player puts all his thrown away cards on a discard pile, which can then be shuffled and used by the dealer if his draw pile runs out.
- If any player manages to get four of a kind, they can take a candy cane; they might wish to do this as sneakily as possible, or indeed make a huge fuss about it, but the choice is theirs.
- Now all the other players must grab a candy cane; the person left without one now has to sit out.
- You cannot touch a cane until the person with four of a kind has actually picked up theirs; if you do, the round ends and you are out; hence there is a lot of possibility for “fake-grabbing,” particularly by the more annoying members of the party.
- The dealership moves along one player for the next round, and a candy cane is taken away so there is always one less than the number of players remaining. Play continues until there is just one triumphant victor.
Variations in rules can be endless, and will no doubt change every time you play it. One rule which is particular to our family is that yes, a broken cane can be eaten, but only by the people who didn’t break it in the first place. If you have more players, just add in another pack of cards. Jokers can be used as wild cards, and if you really want to bring an extra layer of chaos to your party, put the candy canes in a different room.
