I.

One year, while snooping through my mother's closet searching for hidden Hanukkah gifts, I came across a big, heavy rectangular box. Wrapped. Fortunately (for me) the wrapping was either thin or light-colored (both?) and if I stretched it and peered really closely, I could make out what was inside. I knelt on the floor next to my best friend and we squinted and pressed our fingers along the paper, reading the words underneath. "Right…Off…The…Top…Of…Your…Head! Right off the top of your head!" I was getting a new game, I declared triumphantly and for the rest of the month, whenever anyone asked me what I was getting for Hanukkah, I smugly replied that I was getting that new game called "Right Off the Top of Your Head."

Have you ever heard of that game? Yeah. Me neither.

Turns out I had been snooping at the *back* of the Scattergories box. Classy.

II.

Scattergories turned out to be one of my favorites and was a game I frequently played with my wild and crazy friends in our wild and crazy youth. The beauty of it, see, is the battling. It's not so much about who could come up with the most ingenious entries for each category, but rather who could bargain and reason her way into points for a *clearly inappropriate* submission. Case in point: nosegay. A "nosegay" is not a flower. It's a collection of flowers. Come on. Every Scattergories player worth her salt knows that "flower" is the category and "types of flowers" is what belongs on the line next to it. So dedicated to this line of reason was I that a full-out argument ensued, right there in the living room over the giant, polyhedral die. Such an epic battle it was that it eventually made its way into a haiku that this friend wrote for me and read aloud at my 30th birthday party. For years, my friend has maintained her correctness and for years, I have stood firm. Until today. I just sent her this email:

"I am writing a bog post about Scattergories and I went searching for a photo of the card that had the "flowers" category on it so I could tell the nosegay story. What I found was this. Clearly, I have been wrong all these years. If "bridal bouquet" is acceptable to these random scattergories-players, then "nosegay" should have been acceptable. I'll give it to you retroactive to 17 years ago. I disagree fundamentally, though. Let me at least go on record with that. I think the bridal bouquet people are bullshit here and I don't think nosegay should be acceptable, but I will go with general consensus. You win. Nosegay."

III.

Blog Scattergories. Here is where my love of the game comes full circle. I had no idea this was a thing, but I found it in Dresden's blog and far be it from me to turn down an opportunity to play "Right Off the Top of Your Head!" Play here or let me know if you play on your blog. Use the first letter of the answer to the first question to come up with answers for the rest.

1 )What is the name of your favorite Holiday themed song?
Santa Baby

2) Something on your wish list
Speaker dock for my new iPhone

3) Something you plan on baking
Snickerdoodles (although until this post, I had no plans of baking anything.)

4) Something you plan on giving
Smooches

5) Something you plan on avoiding eating
Spaghettios (This goes for all year, every day. No one needs to eat tin-flavored faux-Italian food.)

6) Something you plan on adding to the chorus of '12 Days of Christmas'
Seven hours painting

7) Something you plan on returning/ re-gifting
Sad substitutes for actually useful things

8 ) Something you wish was stuffed into your stocking
Shellac nail polish and the UV light to go with it

9) Some place you wish you could travel to this month
Sandy shores of Florida's west coast

10) Something you will decorate with
Sparkles!

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