I live alone, every weekend but this one.  There are 12 people staying in my house, the refrigerator is so packed that we are storing food on the unheated sun porch.  Half of the guests are under ten and are pretty deft gamers.

 Not long ago CigDangle gave me an Xbox along with some games including Dance Revolution and its companion gamepad.  Amongst the youthful sprites, the dance revolution has been in progress for the last 36 hours.  In a quiet moment in the last minutes of Christmas Eve, my 8 year-old cousin Heidi showed me some of her favorite flash games.

I've always enjoyed the pop-up flash games from Orbitz, mostly playing the golf game.  The ones on MySpace that offer a ringtone after a barely challenging success are less inspiring.  I have spent the most time at Addictinggames.com playing the 50 States game.  (My current record is 87 seconds, no faults).

Before sending her to bed to wait for Santa, Heidi showed me her flash games prowess at Funbrain.com.  Click on the Mom's and Kid's Playground and there are twenty four games to keep the little ones busy.  Some are fun like the alligator standing in a boat firing fishes from a cannon at a crocodile.  Others are educational like Tess's Tree, which is a children's book that kids can read.  Heidi read me the whole book reminding me several times how much she liked to read.  For the even younger ones there is Starfall.com (I'm told by the parents that Heidi's 4 year-old brother is a constant visitor).  Most of these games are engineered for learning and are likely Jack Thompson safe.

 As the stress and strain of large family gatherings begins to wear you down.  Assemble the young ones for some flashgame fun.  It will expand their minds and maybe bring you some peace.

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