Weird Contest Week

You know we love sharing the strange and interesting “holidays” (using the loosest meaning of that word) we discover. Well, today kicks off a real banger: it’s Weird Contest Week.

Yes, that’s a thing! And in its spirit, give yourself permission to challenge the others in your family to a contest of your choosing whenever and wherever you’d like. Extend that permission to the rest of the family as well, and see where it takes you.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Name as many states as you can in one minute

• Who can hold their breath longest?

• Rock paper scissors showdown, best out of 10

• If you’re in the car, try to spot every letter of the alphabet on different license plates

• Revisit a classic like staring contest or thumb war

You can also bring the Bible into things – perhaps you go around the group, with each person naming a different Bible character until somebody draws a blank. Or maybe you play Bible charades with favorite stories or parables – who can guess the story first?

The magic of this particular holiday is that literally anything you can think of can be a contest, and the weirder your idea is, the more appropriate it is for the theme of the week. Just make sure it’s clear what you have to do to win each contest, and what happens when you win. You can, of course, come up with weird prizes to go along with the weird contests, but you can also just cheer for the winner and then move on.

We also invite you to compare your family’s wildest ideas with these international contests. You may not feel the need to roll around in grits or throw oranges at each other, but it might be fun to learn more about people who do! And share your weird contests with us, please – on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. We would love nothing more than to partake vicariously in the weirdness.

Let the games begin!