Every Christmas “Santa” brings the family a new game to conquer. We usually give it go after Christmas brunch, clumsily stumble through the rules, have a few laughs (or not) and shove it in our Game Closet to never be played again. The Game Closet is where games go to die.

Except Scrabble.

We love Scrabble. We play Scrabble on holidays. We play Scrabble on Friday nights. We play Scrabble on family vacations. We rehash the game afterwards, the loser always begging for a rematch.

Last year, I watched the documentary Word Wars in fascination. The power of Scrabble in action.

Friday’s Match of Words in Numbers

• Number of participants: 3
• Number of letters an individual should have: 7
• Number of times a player used all 7 letters: 3
• Number of times all 7 letters were used in the first two plays of the game: 2
• Number of times Dad consulted the Scrabble dictionary: 0
• Number of times Mom and I consulted the Scrabble dictionary: umm… more than Dad.
• Number of winners: 1
• Winning score: Over 300
• Number of things I would have rather been doing on a Friday night: 0
• Number of rematches: 1