sjoel anyone?

Doesn't Christmas give a lot of mileage in this blogging world? I mean, we can start with prospective gift making early in October, without seeming too zealous - after all, lets face it, we'd all like to be that organised!! Then November moves in with more show-and-tell and the beginning of Advent traditions. December has food - lots of it - as well as copious quantities of trees and tree decorations! And even in January (and occasionally Feb, too) there's the gifts received from loved ones and the hand made gifts that can only now, after they've been gifted, be shown off! 

I love it!!! For four months of the year, I can in turn be inspired by the excessive creativity of my fellow bloggers, or disheartened by the fact that I am never far ahead in my planning and mostly flying by the seat of my pants! 

So, all this to set the scene for my own exploitation of the silly season......... yes, I know it's mid March, and I am breaking the above 'rules' but I did mean to post this a while ago - my excuse? I was side tracked by new babies and Knitting! 

Do you remember I posted about the woody gnome home that my 16yo son built for his littlest sister the Christmas before last? Well, this Christmas just gone, my sweet friend S asked our Dreamer to conjure up a Sjoelbak game for her family for a secret Christmas gift. He likes to challenge his wood working skills and with only 2 weeks to go, he set to work.

S's husband is Dutch and this game called Sjoel, is apparently a game played in pubs, in homes and at competition level in the Netherlands. I'm thinking maybe a bit like the ubiquitous pool table that is found in most pubs here in Australia.

With some instructions and plans from here, he put together a very professional set up. 

These pics are from Boxing Day, when the two families had a friendly family round or two (yes, the Golden Girl was still filling out!) 

Let me just say that this game is so much fun!!! Everyone can play - from the little 5 yo and the pregnant mama, all the way up to the older visitors that popped in to spread the Christmas cheer with a bottle of wine! 

The idea is to get the little round discs into the four small openings at the other end - you slide/glide them, quite fast, and if you hit them hard you can push the others in  As you can see in one of the above pics, they do get a bit clogged at the entrance if the player hasn't really got great aim....we'll blame that on the bottle(s) of wine! 

Luckily my boy is a very obliging young man and when he finally finishes one for our family (he's working on it), we will be having friendly competition matches, complete with a Silver Cup or perhaps a Shiny Shield, to win and hang on the mantlepiece. 

Perhaps we'll play Dutch Sjoel with Austrian Schnapps and good old Aussie humour! 

What do you think? Would your family enjoy playing this kind of game? 

I'm linking with Linda for Creative Friday - pop over and have a look at other peoples creativity!