Middle came home from college loving Fluxx. She and her boy had played it at (freshman year, bonus baby) friends' house. We ordered this game for middle from Amazon. Fun. (This is a game that has to be played around a table where everyone can see cards. The game rules and goals change as players put down cards. Have to be able to see all those cards. So this is an "around the kitchen table with good light and paying attention" game.)
Oldest played Monopoly Card game at his friends' house and loved it. The card game is in keeping with the spirit of the board game, just much faster, simpler, smaller. Bought one set for home and another set for middle. Oldest has his own. We all seriously love this game.
Other card games we play with regular decks -
If there are four of us, we play Euchre. This is a very popular game in Indiana. It is oldest's favorite.
If there are a lot of us, and an even number, we play Canasta in teams. Usually girls against guys. This is played with many decks dumped together. We have a large bag of cards we use for this game. (Picture below) This is my favorite card game. Only four hands, but it takes a while.
If we are at a restaurant, we often play Golf. The games are short. Each person plays with six cards in front of them. Youngest loves this one too. Inevitably someone forgets, turns over their last card, without meaning to end the game.
If there are 5 of us, we often play Hearts. It is a good restaurant game too. We also think of this as our train station game. We played it at the Washington DC train station (in the cafe section) a couple years ago.
We play Tic, a lot. There are 14 hands so it takes a while. We have been known to save score sheets to finish a game later. We have been known to save score sheets to prove who won an epic game.
We play Gin or Gin Rummy if there are just a couple of us.
We also play Crazy 8's. Does not require a lot of room or brain power.
Middle loves Speed if she can find a partner. Most of us will not play her, she is too fast, even if we restrict her to left hand only.
Youngest's favorite is Kings in the Corner. Need a flat surface (table, floor, bed) to play. She has been playing this since age 3-4.
This is our bag of Canasta Cards. These are all old decks which no longer shuffle easily, or cards which have had water spilled on them and no long lay flat, or decks which are difficult to read. Full decks always including wild cards go in this bag. I am not sure how many decks are included.
Middle calls these the geriatric playing cards. We buy them at Walgreens.
Regular playing card on left. Geriatric card is on right. Much easier to see with bifocals, in bad lighting, from a distance. Three decks of geriatric cards live in my glove compartment. Three more live on the kitchen table. The three decks consist of two blue and one red. So then we can (easily) pull out the red for two decks of blue. Or play with all three decks. Or pull out the red for one deck. Because different games, number of people, require a different number of decks. And we are often playing with a lot of different combinations of people over the course of a week/weekend.
