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| therobeybunch.blogspot.com |
Tonight we were sitting around the dinner table celebrating my new daughter-in-laws birthday, and laughing hysterically as we reminisced about past birthday’s and other “funny family moments“. Honestly, there’s nothing that makes me laugh harder than listening to “family stories” as told by my kids, or siblings, or nephews, etc. We were all practically crying at one point…and by the time we finally forced ourselves to stop (we could have gone on all night!)…our faces hurt from laughing so much.
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| This photo shows a quarter on top, I much prefer a Lifesaver if I’m going to have to put it in my mouth! thespiceinlife.blogspot.com |
Afterwards I started reflecting on “funny family moments” from days gone by and remembered one holiday tradition in our family that GUARANTEED lots of laughter….and FUN!
The Flour Game! We only played it once a year at our annual Christmas party…and it was always the highlight! :-)
To play the game (according to our family’s version) you fill a teacup with flour, packing it firmly, flip it over onto a plate, and place a Lifesaver candy on the top of it. Each person takes a turn cutting the flour with a knife, and whoever makes the lifesaver FALL, has to fish it our with their mouth! No hands allowed! As you can imagine, hilarity often ensued! As kids I remember we couldn’t WAIT to play The Flour Game at the Christmas Party! It is definitely one of our most treasured holiday traditions.
Since I don’t have any evidence pictures of our family playing this goofy game (I really need to ask my Mom about what old photos she might have)…I decided to poke around the internet and see if there were any other people out there that liked to have “fun with flour!” Guess what!?! There ARE! Not many….but a few…and here are a few photos of some of their exploits just to give you an idea of just how fun/silly/crazy this game is….and why kids (and adults) love it so much!
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| orvdubs.blogspot.com |
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| therealclarissaexplainsitall.blogspot.com |
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| lacduboisbemidji.villagepages.org |
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| neencrochet.blogspot.com |
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| caitlynpassey.blogspot.com |
You simply CANNOT look at these pictures and not want to give it a try! :-) So why not implement a new holiday tradition this year and give The Flour Game a try??
Just make sure to take LOTS of pictures and share them with the rest of us! :-)
And that’s today’s….
I don't have any pictures, but my kids play this outside all the time with their friends. They always put some sort of candy as the topping!
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This is so cute. I needed a laugh – thanks!
I grew up in Germany and this was a favorite game at birthday parties.
How much flour does gets cut away per turn?
It’s up to you how much you cut away! You just want to keep the life saver from dropping.
That is too funny! Plain flour sounds like it would taste kinda gross, though. I wonder if powdered sugar would work?
This was my feeling, too–flour in your mouth would be awful. Powdered sugar just makes so much more sense.
If you use powdered sugar, you can bet that there will be some kids who will mess it up on purpose just so they can like the sugar too. I would stick with the flour.
“lick” not “like”
Sounds like fun but it could be very unhealthy, especially for little ones. Accidently breathing in the flour or flour dust can cause health problems.
Vonnie, I was thinking the same thing. It looks fun, but I don’t want my kids to get asthma or pneumonia.
ummm, asthma isn’t caused by inhaling particles. Usually it has to do with a genetic predisposition that is triggered by a factor in your environment. It’s basically an allergy that causes bronchospasms and restricted airways. I doubt that flour will be the trigger. If it is, we all better throw out our Kitchenaid mixers, as they are a great source of airborne flour particulates.
It actually can. It is a lung irritant. Google “baker’s asthma”.
I thought it looked fun, but also realized my daughter should NEVER do this as she has asthma, which dust triggers. I wouldn’t advise anyone to do this because you never know what may trigger asthma even in someone that has never had an asthma episode before.
No, I’m pretty sure flour, which you ingest regularly, will not cause health problems. Nice try though.
Doesn’t it go up your nose, especially once everyone starts laughing, which makes the person who’s “it” laugh, too. Doesn’t that burn? It does look funny, though!
Love your blog! I have a really funny story about this game. I was in student council when I was in high school, and one year I managed to get put on the unofficial committee for pep rally games, which I was terrible at. Anyway, one week, this game was our inspiration for a game we designed, where there were gummy worms baked into a cake and the goal was to fish as many gummy worms out of the cake as possible. The problem was that the gummy worms had melted into the cake. Those of us who were playing (we were all in student council and had baked the cakes anyway) had to just go with it, and pretend that we were getting the gummy worms out. Moral of the story: Stick to flour or powdered sugar. And already tried and true pep rally games.
Our family would play this at the beach with sand and a stick. Instead of fishing it out with our mouth the loser would have to jump in the water. We go to Santa Cruz, the water isn’t very warm
This looks like fun!!! People need to lighten up though. Sheltering children from the world is the reason why they get sick so easily and have so many allergies these days.
Agreed! Preach it sister! Too many kids wrapped in bubble wrap if you ask me! Enjoy life 110%!!!!
My family and I play it a little different. We hide the quarter in the flour before we pack it in. Whoever’s cut hits the quarter or finds the quarter has to get it out without their hands.
I will have to try this with my grandkids! It looks like a great family tradition!
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You can turn this into a race. We would hide a piece of candy at the bottom of several plate of flour and then people race to see who can find and pick up the piece of candy first. Of course they would do this without using their hands. Used to play this when I was in the youth group. Makes for some great photos and videos.
Flour can trigger asthma. My dad worked in a commercial bakery for over 30 years and he developed asthma from breathing in all that flour. With that being said, I don’t think playing this game once or twice a year will trigger asthma.
Wouldn’t this make a big mess? Haha
We use to play this game with a square of a Hershey’s bar. And we played it a little different too, but your version sounds fun. You need to use flour to make it more interesting because who wants to taste flour just to get to a piece of chocolate? We use to get into so many flour fights. I’ll have to dig out those pictures….
When I checked this out I never expected to see so many negative comments. When I was a child kids played in in the mud played fun silly games like this and always had fun doing it. Children were also very healthy back then. Not these days. Every other child seems to have asthma or some kind of allergy. Anti bacterial soap seems to be everywhere you go. Yes being sanitary is a good thing but children need to be exposed to certain things to allow their immune system to develop. Of course being exposed to flour for years on a permanent basis can cause asthma but not by playing a playing with it once in a while. Loosen up people. Let kids be kids again.
I agree with you, children are very sheltered these days. We live in the country our kids play in the mud and get dirty, but I do have a daughter that has asthma and dust triggers it. This would be horrible for her to do, I woudln’t let my other daughter do it either. Sometimes we learn from things we “used to do back then” and learn a few weren’t so smart. Sorry no disrespect I would just hate to see someone have to deal with what my daughter deals with because of the flour game.
I have asthma but you know darn well I’m going to be trying this hillarious game out with my family.
This game sounds awesome and hilarious, I’d love to try it out with my primary kids at church. However since I have kids as young as 3 I’m also concerned about inhaling the flour….. Not for asthma, because playing it once in a blue moon won’t do any harm, but laughing so hard in the moment you snort in the flour. What about playing it with something like…… Whipped cream? Is that “cutable”? I really want to play this game!!
Whipped cream by itself would really hold much nor be very cutable, unless…you FROZE IT!! :D As a kid I would freeze whipped cream and scoop it out like ice cream on to a bowl of strawberries. It holds its shape better and the kids could still cut it (even those 3s). OR I bet doing this with ice cream would be fun, especially on a hot day outside with the ultimate goal being to cool off and have fun getting messy in the ice cream/whipped cream as they try to play the game. Good luck! I’d love to hear how it works out! I have a pre-k class in which I might consider doing this. Thanks for giving me the idea to find other spaces for this game and make other variations of the game to share with my work in pre-k.
We used to microwave the flour in the cup for a few seconds, it seems to help it hold together more once you starting putting your face in it and snorting :) Just make sure you don’t get it too hot.. I played this game for hours every friday night with my friends all through middle school and none of us had any issues. We would choke occassionally but it wasn’t anything a few *cough cough* and a drink couldn’t fix. We used starbursts on top, easy to grab and easy to see in the flour. Try it!! I’m going to make the boyfriend play very soon :)
Thanks for this post!! Brings back some epic memories :)
Oooo…good tip! Never heard of that. :-)