Russian Tea Party Games

Adorable Anastasia

• Arrange your guests in a circle and choose the name of one of your guests. For this example, the chosen name is Anastasia. To begin, the host chooses an adjective that begins with the same letter as the person's name to describe the person, such as adorable. The first player after the host chooses the initial adjective must recite "Our adorable Anastasia is" and then add an additional adjective to describe the person that begins with the letter 'A'. For instance, this player could say "Our adorable Anastasia is apprehensive." The second player must immediately follow and substitute his or her own adjective but it must begin with the letter following 'A', which in this case is 'B'. An example: "Our adorable Anastasia is beguiling." Continue rapidly around the circle and work through the alphabet one person at a time. Any player who makes a mistake or takes more than five seconds to come up with an adjective is out. The last remaining player wins.

Dancing Bears

• Using construction paper, cut out bear paws in a variety of colors. Bear paws consist of one large pad and five toes so anything resembling this shape will work. Distribute a bear paw to each player, making sure that no one else sees what color the other players receive and that each player conceals their paw. Note: Most multicolored packages of construction paper contain five colors so several guests may receive the same color. This will not affect the game. Sit your guests in a circle and familiarize them with the distributed colors. To begin, one player at a time (going clockwise) has one chance to guess the color of another player's paw. He or she is free to direct their guess to the player of their choosing. Once a player's color has been guessed, that player is out. Continue until just one player is left. The last player left wins the game.

Pastimes

• Give every one of your guests a 3x5-inch note card and ask them to write down his or her top ten favorite pastimes. Collect all of the note cards and place them in a bag. Arrange your guests in a circle. Choose a player to begin. He or she picks a note card from the bag. If the player picks his or her own card, he should put it back in the bag and pick another. The player then reads the listed pastimes aloud, one by one. The goal is for another player to guess whose card has been picked and the first player to guess correctly-by stating the correct name out loud-wins a point. Players are allowed to guess before all ten pastimes are read but each player can only guess once for each card. You or a volunteer can keep score and when the bag is empty, the player with the most correct guesses wins.