Date Ideas #1: Old-School Games

Chad going for the kick in Paper Football.

Since the start of our marriage, Chad and I have always worked together in some capacity. After the first few years of having too many work conversations over dinner, we decided that something needed to change. So we implemented the weekly Sacred Date Night.

In reality, we just call it "date night", but we've come to regard it with such respect that it is pretty much sacred to us. No phone calls, no rainchecks, no multi-tasking. This is our time alone.

After talking to other couples, I realised that this idea was a popular (and much sought-after) one, but whether due to time or lack of inspiration, many couples don't implement this. So as we've been doing this now for over five years, I thought I'd help eliminate one of those reasons and start a new list of date ideas. Some of them may seem silly but as the point of date night isn't to be majorly productive, we didn't see this is as a problem...

#1: Old School Games
Remember games as a kid? Ones that didn't involve a power supply? Go down memory lane and share your favourite childhood games together. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Knucklebones/5 Stones
  This was what I played when exams were over and you were simply sitting in the classroom filling time.
• Paper Football (see photo)
  The less-painful version for the dining room table. See here for instructions. Or click here for a pretty entertaining video tutorial.
• Board Games (e.g. Twister, Candy Lane, The Game of Life)
• Marbles
• Fold paper airplanes
  For added mileage, borrow an origami book from the library and learn how to fold different kinds of planes. Then set up a target area and try to send your planes into it.
• Basketball
  Set up mugs around the room. Using crumpled-up pieces of paper as balls, try to get them into the mugs from a designated position.
• Pac-Man
  Ok, this one is kind of cheating. But I think most people will agree that Pacman is a classic. If you have an iPod touch, iPhone or iPad, download "Pac-Man Lite" for free and take turns trying to eat those white dots as fast as you can.