The Speed Round Left Right Game
A one-minute left right story packed with passes. Use it as a fast final round or when the group is getting restless.
How to play: everyone holds a gift. Read the story out loud. Pass one seat left on every LEFT and one seat right on every RIGHT. When the story ends, keep what you're holding.
Ready? This one is fast. Pass left. Pass right. Left again.
A squirrel ran left across the road, saw a car, ran right, then left, then right back where it started, which is what squirrels do. Right, right, left.
A man named Ted left his keys on the right side of the counter. Or the left side? No. Right. He left without them. Left, left, right.
His wife called and said, "Ted, they're right here." Ted said, "Right." He turned left, then right, then left into the driveway, and the keys were right there. Left. Right. Left.
Done! No, not done. Right. Left.
Now it's done. Stop passing. Keep what you've got.
When a one-minute round helps
To break a tie. Two people both want the heated blanket? Put it in the circle with one other gift, read this, and whoever is holding the blanket at the end keeps it. No appeals.
As the last round of the night. After a steal round, people get attached to what they're holding. One fast round shakes things up a final time without keeping anyone from their coats.
As a warm-up. Read it once before a long story like the Christmas Eve one, so the whole circle learns which way is left before it counts.
For kids who can't sit still. A minute is about as long as a room of five-year-olds will hold a wrapped gift without opening it.
How to run it fast
Read faster than feels polite. The joke is that nobody can keep up, so don't wait for the gifts to land before the next cue.
In reader mode, tap through the cues as fast as you can say them. If nobody wants to read, open the settings, pick Auto-pace and push the pace up past 200 words a minute.
No redos. If somebody sends a gift the wrong way, it stays wherever it went. Arguing about it takes longer than the story.
Ways to mix it up
Read it twice. The first time at a normal speed so everyone learns the words, the second time as fast as the reader can manage. The second one is the round people remember.
Add a freeze rule. Anyone caught passing the wrong way sits out the next round, still holding whatever they ended up with.
Finish the dice game with it. Play a few rounds of the dice version, then read this as the closer, so the last word goes to a story instead of a die.
How to play
Everyone sits in a circle holding a wrapped gift. The reader reads this story out loud. On every left, everybody passes one seat to the left. On every right, one seat to the right. When the story ends, you keep whatever you're holding. More detail, and what to do with a big group, is on the rules page.