As part of our recent mid-winter Christmas family get-together in New Zealand, we decided to import a much loved festive English tradition – the After Eight game.
For those new to the game, the aim is to move chocolate from your forehead to your mouth without using your hands. So even if you lose, you’re still a winner!
The first challenge was finding the After Eights. They aren’t really a thing in New Zealand – we have mint chocolate biscuits and peppermint chocolate slabs but the wafer thin square coated in dark chocolate, not so much. After an exhaustive search of both supermarkets in town, we found a couple of boxes – on the international food shelf!
Then there was the conundrum of how best to play when you have potentially forty people participating. Inspired by the Olympics, my son calculated the heats, semi’s and finals. There was a picture and everything. Although, the most debate was about whether all those with receding hairlines needed to have their own heat…
Luckily, it didn’t take long for the team to understand the objective of the game. My nephew managed a cracker of a heat with a single movement head snap and catch. It was even caught on camera with multiple slow motion replays, which the judges (me) scored top points for both style and speed.
Unfortunately, it couldn’t be repeated in the finals…
So what did we learn:
- My family aren’t very good at following instructions. Apparently it’s difficult to remember what numbered heat they were allocated.
- My family is very competitive. Once they’d seen the demonstration, the gloves came off and the elbows came out.
- Practice does help. The English contingent had the benefit of experience and were difficult to beat. Although due to the aforementioned point, the next competition could be tougher…
And, of course, we confirmed the universal truth that it really is hard to take someone seriously when they have a chocolate trail down their face!
Tough Mother 