Some years ago, my son and his friends made up a new holiday. Or at least it is new to us–Friendsgiving. In order to escape their homes for the long weekend, or maybe it was just to play video games all day, they would arrange to meet at a friend’s house with a couple of left overs from the Thanksgiving meal of the day before. Originally, it was the desserts that went missing first–the pies and cheesecakes and the chips and salsa.

This year it was especially poignant, as two of his friends had joined the service and one had moved away to go to school. While not everyone made it home, those that remained came to the get together. This year it wasn’t just a carb rush, as I got my son to take a vegetable along with the pumpkin bars. Given that two of my children are adults this was a good way to get rid of leftovers.

But I didn’t stop there. I invited my family that was still in town over for regiving. Everyone made their own plate and heated it up. Afterwards, we didn’t play video games we sat around the table and played UNO. Every other year, my mom buys a new version of UNO. This year was UNO Reflex.

If you’ve never seen the game, it’s played similar to regular UNO, but after you play a card, you hit this electronic button. Sometimes one of the colored lights glows and you’re supposed to be the first one to slap that colored card onto the table. Which might happen if you went clasping your hand so tight that three came free or you could see and didn’t grab the wrong color (2 card penalty). We had fun between giggling, but I think my husband cheated as he won all but two rounds.