I am content with silence, but I have three Varmints. Silence is not in their repertoire. Accordingly we have some games we play.
The best is "the initials game". It is kind of like 20 questions, but it can go on for as long as needed before someone figures it out. It starts with one person giving the initials of what they have in mind, and then everyone else asks questions which can be answered "yes" or "no" until someone finally correctly guesses what the initials stand for. As an example, I could start out with D.D.A.S. Varmints will ask is it animal? (Yes), Is it vegetable? (Yes), Is it mineral? (No) Is it bigger than a bread box? (No), Is it good to eat? (Yes), Is it a meal we fix at home? (No), Is it something we buy at the grocery store? (No), and on and on until someone finally guesses that it is a Double Double, Animal Style.
Another game The Varmints recently came up with is the chain game. One word starts it off and then we go around with each person giving out a word that has as its first letter the letter that was the final letter of the previous word. For instance I could start off with "hamburger". The next person could say "rock". The next could say "kick". Followed by "king-golf-fox-xylophone-echo-orchid-drumstick-knight-thick..." The challenge is, no word can be repeated. If someone re-uses a word they have ended the game and they lose. The example I presented has a number of words which end in the letter "k". Trying to focus on one letter makes the game more challenging and pushes the limits of those with poorly developed vocabularies. In order to not be cruel I try not to use too many words that end with an "x". I have also taken to having The Varmints spell their words out phonetically (Romeo-Oscar-Charlie-Kilo) and having the youngest keep a running log. This helps to keep them on their toes with spelling and the phonetic alphabet and give the youngest even more reinforcement for learning to spell correctly. Oh, and proper nouns are excluded, as are foreign languages.
A game we were briefly able to use was "Green Glass Doors". This is only good for as long as it takes everyone to figure it out, then it isn't any fun until you get some new folks with whom to play it. For some examples, puppies and kittens can go through green glass doors, but not dogs or cats. Beer goes through green glass doors, but wine does not. A moose, a goose and a deer can go through green glass doors, but a calf, a gosling and a fawn cannot. A pool can go through green glass doors, but a pond cannot. That should be enough examples. PM me if you cannot figure it out and it is driving you up the wall. It can be quite the challenge for some people, especially when trying to do it in on the road.
I will also note that the above games are also suitable for use over the air if you have multiple vehicles and radio communication. I expect somewhere there has been a fellow ham who has heard us and wondered "whiskey tango foxtrot" but been too polite to interfere.
