spreading the word

Last year at my family's Christmas party, D and I taught my siblings and cousins how to play Settlers of Catan. We all had a great time despite a small mishap where D got excited and spilled someone's red wine all over the game.

This year, we played at Thanksgiving, after which my cousins tried to find the game at Target and Walmart, but gave up because they could only find it online and wanted it "right away". We (of course) had brought our set to Christmas dinner, so we obligingly broke it out after we finished eating. After two games, D and I went to sleep; it was nearly 1:30am and we had an early morning flight to Maui from SJC. We left the game with them during the week we were gone. Later we discovered that they played another three games that night, and then my brother played again during the week with our mom and his girlfriend.

We'd also taught the game to D's cousins last year, so they were able to participate in the Thanksgiving festivities as well. For Christmas, instead of playing more Settlers (which they've been playing online all year), we decided to teach them Puerto Rico. I think we may have at least one PR convert; we caught him reading online strategy guides during the game. Craziness!