Planning your game day.

The best way to start is with the old five "W"s of journalism: who, what, when, where and why.

Who ya' gonna call? National Games Week is usually held during Thanksgiving, a great time to play games with your family, but your friends leave town to visit theirs. Don't assume that Bob and Sue will be around to play, check with them first.

There are many ways to pick the games for your game day(s).

• Pull all your games out of your closet or off the shelves and pile them up. Vote on them or maybe have the youngest pick. How about say that whoever picks the game needs to pick one they haven't played before (or maybe just haven't played in years).
• Run a tournament. Depending on what games you have, keep scores over multiple games.
• Pick them blind. Write the names of the games you might want to play and drop them in a hat. You pick it - you play it.

There are many other ways to pick your games to play, but keep in mind that you're all there to have fun so if someone pulls out a game that nobody really wants to play, don't suffer through it, just pick another.

Scheduling is often the bane of any group getting together to play. Just be sure to pick games that you can actually finish in the time slot - don't start a long European strategy game unless you've got the time.

As a reminder, if you're planning on playing a new game, it's a good idea for you or one of the other players to read the rules BEFORE you sit down to play. It's always more fun to play a game than to watch somebody else reading the rules.

No matter where you play, make sure you have enough table space, chairs, paper and pencils for scoring and whatever else you need. Who's bringing the chips and dip?

Because it's fun!