Memorial Day weekend is just around the corner, which means it’s time to start planning a fun family cookout! Whether you’re hosting a barbecue or trekking out to your family lake house, Memorial Day weekend is the perfect time to break out of those winter blues and catch some sun rays all day. Sharing good food and company is already fun on its own, but amp up your party with these 10 games that are family friendly and guaranteed crowd favorites!
Before Memorial Day, make your fam fill out a questionnaire so you can get all the info you need. Once you’ve gathered your content, in a Jeopardy-style format, make categories for each family members with questions increasing in difficulty as point value goes up! See who knows each other best by pitting your people against one another!
If you’ve got a campfire, Broken Telephone is a classic family favorite you can play with your whole crew! The rules are simple: someone whispers a sentence in the person next to them’s ear, and then they pass the phrase around the circle. By the end of the line, the last person has to repeat the sentence loud enough for the whole group to hear it. And chances are, your sentence is completely different from how it started!
The goal, of course, is to keep the phrase as close to its original form as possible, but butchering the sentence completely is half the fun!
What better excuse to gorge on some sweet treats than in a Memorial Day eating contest?! American classics like pie or donuts are the perfect choice for your next binge fest, but if you’ve got some cast iron stomachs in your family, channel your inner Joey Chestnut with hot dogs. Only the brave will participate in this activity, but the aftermath will surely be entertaining for everyone watching! Eating contests also make for a hilarious photo op and ensure you won’t be left with more leftovers than you can handle. Talk about sustainable!
Got a pool? Classics like Marco Polo might be fun for a minute, but can get so repetitive and boring. Kick it up a notch this Memorial Day with some alternative water challenges! If you have a diving board, competitive, themed diving competitions are a hilarious way to pass time. Try a belly flop contest, for example, or turn your diving board into a runway with an aquatic version of America’s Next Top Model!
For an easy game that doubles as a DIY project, challenge your family members to a cardboard boat building contest! Once you’re finished constructing your masterpieces, place them in the pool and whichever stays afloat the longest wins. You can also play a similar game with rubber duckies, if you don’t feel like putting your carpentry skills to the test, where you try to push your ducks to the other end of the pool without using your hands. Although you can propel them with water or blow air on them to move, it’s harder than it sounds!
If an eating contest isn’t enough, establish yourself as a Holiday Baking Champion by facing off with your family members in a Memorial Day baking showdown for the ages! Choose a dessert that everyone participating will make (apple pies or anything all-American work best), and designate one family member as the judge of your work. Critiquing qualities like taste and presentation, the winner will be crowned supreme baker!
No Memorial Day party would be complete without this American classic! Also known as “bean bag toss,” all this game requires are two wooden boards with a holes cut out and some bean bags. In teams of two, one player from each team stands next to a board, which should be positioned facing each other but several yards apart, and tries to toss their bean bags into the other board’s hole. If you make your own boards out of plywood, you can mark different point values on different spots on the boards, boosting the competitive spirit and making for an even bigger challenge! Most stores sell corn hole boards, though, so this game is super accessible and will put your family members to the test!
Put a Memorial Day spin on this heads up style, homemade game! Using famous American figures (i.e. Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, etc.), each player gets one minute to write as many celebrities’ names on pieces of scrap paper, and then when the time is up, place all the names in a bucket or hat. Everyone partners up and in the first round, each player has one minute to give their teammate clues about who the celebrity on the card is until they guess correctly. In the second round, you also give your partner clues, but in three words or less. The final round entails charading the celebrity.
You don’t have to put a Memorial Day spin on this game, though, because it’s family friendly and super fun on its own!
Remember the classic competition reality show where contestants face off in a battle of talents? Put your own family members’ unique skills and tricks to the ultimate test in your very own family version of America’s Got Talent! Designate a few family members as judges, and make sure they bring a personality to the table. This game is particularly fun if you’ve got a lot of siblings or parents with weird talents they like to show off, and no one should be afraid to make a fool of themselves! The crazier the talent the better!
Remember time you knocked out your little sib’s tooth? Or how about when your big bro helped you sneak out in high school? “Story Time” might not sound like a game, but this family oriented activity could at least reveal some deep dark family secrets!
With a story that has been picked out in advance, everyone participating tells a story about one other family member. This story can be sweet, funny, or down right embarrassing! Regardless of how you play it, everyone will have a good time learning about their relatives and makes for a great bonding activity.
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