Christmas is almost here! What a joy! Christmas has always been associated with the wonderful tradition of giving and receiving gifts from friends and family. For boys, especially, this season translates into only one word – toys and games! Every year, toy manufacturers come up with various innovative toy & game products to entice us adults into buying new and expensive products for our kids, our grandkids, nieces, nephews, the list is endless! And more often than not, after we make the purchase, we wonder if we did end up buying the right toy or game. Well, there is no real way to know unless you see the look on their face, now, is there? One gift you cant go wrong with this Christmas is a board game, boys still love playing them!

5 popular board games for boys this Christmas:

Buying board games for boys is like choosing a candy from a candy store. The options are endless! Take a look at what young boys want this Christmas.

* Board Game For Boys Christmas Gift Idea 1
HedBanz is a fun family game for ages 6 to adult.  The idea is simple, draw an identity card and place it on the hedbanz.  Everyone else knows what the card is but you!  You must beat the clock and guess what it is by asking questions.  This is a board game boys love playing and even parents!

* Board Game For Boys Christmas Gift Idea 2
Spot-it is a fun matching game for ages 7 and up.  Very easy game to play. Players draw 2 circular cards that each have 8 different symbols and place them face up. The first player to find the matching symbol wins the cards. The player who wins the hand places another 2 cards face up and the process is repeated.

* Board Game For Boys Christmas Gift Idea 3
Leo Creationary is a new board game for boys that you build, play and change! The board game has unique buildable Lego dice and changable rules.  Boys will get to use their imagination, creativity, building and guessing skills to the max.

* Board Game For Boys Christmas Gift Idea 4
Operation, yep, boys still love this classic board game.  Who can forgot the classic childhood battles you had with your brother while playing Operation!  It’s a board game that every generation of young boys still cant play enough of because it is so much FUN.  

* Board Game For Boys Christmas Gift Idea 5
Magical Rainbow is a new board game for boys that can be played with as both a board game and magnetic make believe play set.  So when your boy has no friends to play the board game with he can use his imagination and create a make believe land of his own.

So go out and buy your boy a board game and rekindle your own childhood spirit this Christmas!
 

The happy days, when we all used to play board games in a group are diminishing. In those days, families used to have more than a single child and it was a joy to play board games such as monopoly, candyland, operation and others. The joy was in the board games as well as the group interaction. Today with many families opting for a single child, its tough to find board games that can be played with alone. A child needs to play board games. a child enjoys the imagery of games such as monopoly . The imagination works wonders for a young mind.

Imagine parents worrying about their child- who will play with our child? Will he/she never play group board games that we enjoyed so much in our childhood? Will, my kid never know the joy of playing board games? Please stop worrying about that because one manufacturer has solved this problem.

The Magical Rainbow kids board game by Crossen Creations was designed so that it could be played with a group or alone.  The beauty of the board game is that when your child has no one to play the game with they can use the magnetic play pieces and colorful game board as their very own imaginary play land.  As I said earlier, imagination works wonders for a young mind, and what a great way to get more out of a board game.  If your child has someone to play the board game with great, if not then your childs imagination can be put to good use.

Magical Rainbow kids board game has won top industry awards, including Creative Child’s Board Game of the year and Dr Toy Best Picks.  Children love playing it, and parents too! So get your copy now before they are sold out this Christmas.  The board game can be purchased at amazon.com or directly from magicalrainbow.com

Click Here For Fun Scavenger Hunt Games!

Saint Patrick’s day is a religious feast festival of Catholic christians having its roots in Ireland with the celebrations gaining significance in other countries, particularly America and Britain. Just like St. Valentines Day, St. Patrick’s Day (i.e, 17th March) commemorates the demise of the revered patronised Irish saint St. Patrick. So, what is the legend behind St. Patrick which led to the association of a festival in his name and how is the day celebrated ?

The story goes like this…

Originally born (in later half of fourth century) to Roman parents in Scotland or Roman England (there are conflicting opinions regarding the place of birth), he was previously known by the name Maewyn Succat. He was given a Romanicized name Patricius leading to him being known as Patrick.

Patrick was originally a pagan ( a non-believer of Christianity ). During his childhood, he was kidnapped and sold as a slave to the Celtic Druids who then ruled Ireland. It was during that stage of life that his attitude and beliefs towards God started changing. After six years, he escaped from slavery when he dreamt of God giving him instructions for the same. He was taught priesthood in France. When he became a bishop, he again dreamt of Irish people calling him and requiring his services.

So, he returned to Ireland with firm belief of converting pagans to Christians. Despite being arrested by the Celtic Druids several times, he always managed to escape and was not deterred. He actively baptized and preached Christianity. He even used diplomacy like gifting people in kinglets and gifting lawgivers. For 20 years he had traveled throughout Ireland, establishing monasteries across the country. He also set up schools and churches which would aid him in his conversion.

How is the Patrick’s day celebrated ?

As a part of the celebration, Many Irish people wear a bunch of shamrock on their lapels or caps on St. Patrick’s Day, while children wear tricolored (green, white and orange) badges. Girls traditionally wore green ribbons in their hair (many still do).

A three-leafed Shamrock clover was used by St. Patrick to represent the trinity, like father, son and holy spirit; also shamrock was considered lucky by Irish people. The shamrock was used by the Irish as a mark of nationalism when the English invaded the Celtics. Thus a shamrock is given lot of reverence in Ireland. Leprechuans or Irish fairy people are also associated with St. Patrick’s festival. In Irish mythology, a leprechaun is a type of elf said to inhabit the island of Ireland.

In recent times, the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Dublin have been extended to a week-long event called St. Patrick’s Festival, encompassing a spectacular fireworks display (Skyfest), open-air music, street theater and the traditional parade. Over one million people attended the celebrations in 2004.

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated worldwide by the Irish and those of Irish descent. A major parade takes place in Dublin and in most other Irish towns and villages. The three largest parades of recent years have been held in Dublin, New York and Birmingham England. Parades also take place in other centers, London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore and throughout the Americas.

In the United States, St. Patrick’s Day would not be St. Patrick’s Day unless the Chicago River is dyed green. Also, St. Paddy’s Day has little religious or historical significance. Established in Boston in 1737, it is essentially a time to put on a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” button, and parade drunken through the streets singing a mangled version of “Danny Boy” in celebration of one’s real or imagined Irish ancestry.

A new childrens board game called the Magical Rainbow is also a fun game to play with the family.  It has a cute theme about a leprechaun who was given a magical rainbow to travel the world to give out his gold to people in need.  It’s kind of like candyland but with a lot of fun twists and its also magnetic.  

Thus in a nutshell, it can be seen that the legends revolving around St Patrick have been inseparably combined with the facts. The day invariably evokes the “I am Irish” sentiments alongwith patronizing St. Patrick for his services towards Ireland. And together they have helped us know much about the Saint and the spirit behind celebration of the day.

Board games have evolved massively over the years. As a child my memories of board games were Operation, Candy Land, Battle Ship, Guess Who and many many more. All games that we could play as a family to pass the time away. Hours of fun was had by all.

My favorite game was Operation, I loved hitting my cousins arm as he tried to pick out the wishbone:) He would yell when the red nose buzzer went off, and say I cheated.  I loved cheating, that was the best part about playing board games and now with the advancement of technology you cant even cheat

Many Sunday afternoons were spent with my family playing these fabulous board games. 
How things have changed? Today, whilst we still have the old traditional Board games, and I guess we always will, Games are far more advanced, and are often played on computers, or via DVD Players using your Television sets.

You can now play a board game on your own against a Computer (who will act as your opponent) as opposed to playing with friends and/or family. I find this quite sad, especially knowing how much fun we had as children interacting with each other, and observing each other as we rowed over such meaningless but then important issues.

I now see my own nephews spending hours on their own in front of a computer playing games without any physical human interaction, whilst their parents get on with other things. I guess one advantage is that if you are an only child you don’t miss out on not playing games just because you had no-one else to play it with you. The Traditional games such as monopoly can now be played on a computer and the Computer can act as your opponent. You can even set what level of difficulty you want to play at.

The disadvantage to this, in my opinion is that the family getting together and interacting with each other seems to be a thing of the past.