More Christmas Games

Tonight I ventured back out to the Christmas games with all of my batteries charged in all of my equipment. Good thing, as I stayed until 11 pm taking pictures and video.

The first game that we played tonight was for the 15+ group, where we had a Nerf Arrow Gun, and we had to shoot and hit a stuffed Barney toy. Well, I was just planning to be a spectator so I could just take pictures .. but, eventually my resistance was warn down by the locals and I was convinced to take my shot at Barney. What's the worst that could happen right? Well, I hit Barney square in the head (don't know who to thank ... all of those years playing Duck Hunt on the Sega, or the years of playing Caps while in residence). In either case, I moved on to the second round. And then the third round, where it was between myself and one of my students. After many attempts and many tense moments, Barney was dead. His life was snuffed out in such a violent way, by yours truly. My reward (er... prize)? A 50$ Gift Card for The Northern (sweet! I can buy yogurt now for school!).

Next, there was another game for the 16+ crew (I did sit this one out as I didn't have mittens with me). In this game, there were two circles, the inner circle was wearing one mitten with the other in a pile in the middle, while the outer circle had to do all of the work. Both circles walked around in opposite directions of each other while music was playing. When the music stopped, the outer circle had to drive / crawl between the inner circle member's (that was in front of them) legs, grab a mitten, find it's mate and then crawl between that person's legs and then sit down. The last team to sit down is eliminated. This game went on for quite some time, but it was very amusing to watch.

After, there was a game for just the men (+16). This game involved them rolling a dice trying to roll a magic number (I think it was 4). If they rolled a 4 they got to run to the center of the circle to try to unscrew as many screws from a block that they could before the next person rolled a 4 and bumped them out. This game was very similar to the catalog game that I played last night. The prize? A wicked power tool set (I could use one of those).

Next there was a game for just the women (+16). This game, which turned more violent than I think the organizers planned) involved us racing against each other (two people at a time) hitting a balloon down the gym with a 2x4 and placing the balloon in the garbage can at the other end. Well, we were not only hitting our own balloons, but also the balloons of our opponents, we here hitting each other with the 2x4's, and basically playing hockey at times while trying to get our balloon in the garbage can and at the same time, trying to get rid of our opponents balloon.

There were also two other games for the older community members (+16) as well as several games for the elders.

At the end of the night, before the dance, there were finally some games for the younger kids who were in attendance. The girls got to play a dance type game and the boys had a scavenger hunt. As I was leaving, the elders were just beginning to play one of their games where they had to put together a puzzle as a team as quickly as they could.

It's been pretty interesting up here in Arctic Bay during the Christmas Games. Most of the community members were quite surprised that I was still here, as last year, there was a mass exodus at Christmas time with the southern teachers. One asked if I was the only southern teacher that stayed up here as they commented that I was the only one that they ever saw out anywheres since school got out for the holidays. I explained that no, there were actually many of us still here in town, but that they were all taking some down time, contacting family ..... They asked about me, I said that I just email mine to let them know that I'm alive. They laughed.