Happy New Bomb – a Fun & Meaningful Game for Family Bonding

 It’s that time of year again!

It’s still November, not quite December yet, but the conversations about parties and holiday plans are everywhere. The whole atmosphere really makes you feel you are behind if you don’t have any plan for Christmas and new year.

I don’t quite like the craziness of shopping and commercials during this season, but I do like to use the special time to reflect on the past year and set new goals for the coming year.

Knowing I’m going to be on a holiday trip with in-laws among the mountains, I said to my husband, “What are we going to do on Christmas eve and New Year eve? What about having a quiet party that we as a family can have a reflection time? We can just talk about what we did in the past year and tell each other our goals and plans for the coming year. Won’t that be a great time of family bonding? ” I blinked my eyes feeling very pleased and excited with my idea.

But my husband just laughed: “A quiet party? Of reflection time? That would be the strangest party that I’ve ever been at! ”. Realizing my serious look, he added: “It might work for my mum, but my brother… he is 25 years old, not sure whether he’d appreciate the ‘quiet’…”

“Oh, yes you might be right! It will be too boring for him. I need to think of something cool and fun…but I really like to have some meaningful reflection time…”

By that time, I was even more seriously in my thoughts.

After a while, “What about a game? …”

After another little while, “What about a countdown bomb?…”

That was how the “Happy New Bomb” game came about. I used it with my family and during friend gatherings and now I would like to share it with the rest of the world.

The game is easy. You can just use your phone alarm as ‘bomb’. It could be set anything between 1 to 5 mins.

When you start the timer, you reveal one of the face-down question cards, read the question out aloud and place it in the middle of the group. Then you answer that question, and pass the bomb (your phone) to the person next to you.

Whoever holds  the “bomb” needs to give an answer to the question on the question card. Whoever holds the “bomb” when the alarm starts to ring will have to pick one “punishment” card.

Alternatively, that person can perform 20 pushups (or whatever other activity you agreed on as a group before starting the game). However, the tasks on the punishment cards aren’t hard and they are designed to make people laugh and have fun time together. That’s it!

Try it with your friends and families. I bet you guys will have a great holiday time. It will be fun and meaningful!  Download Happy New Bomb Family Bonding Card Game printable, you can print it out, cut the cards at home and start to play it straight away..

Below are some examples of fun punishments: