For many families, there are games that evolve into full-blown family traditions. A fun, beloved game that evokes hearty laughter, solidifies rivalries, inspires camaraderie, or even teaches you how to cheat inconspicuously. Some families play card games, some play sports. My family is full of Parcheesi nuts.
My grandmother (Mamita) had a love for all sorts of games and puzzles, from Scrabble to War to word searches, but her love for Parcheesi was next to legendary. The object of the game isn’t particularly unique: get your pieces all the way around the board first and you win. Of course, there are hazards and strategies along the way. For instance, if you have two of your own pieces on the same space, it creates a “bridge” that prevents the pieces behind it from advancing. A stubborn player can keep a bridge up for a long time, which can lead to some serious opponent frustration.
Also, if you land on a space already occupied by another player, you send that piece all the way back home to start the journey all over again. In Parcheesi lingo, this is called “eating” your opponent. The “eater” also gets to advance an additional 20 spaces, so this is a common move that causes celebration and irritation.
Mamita watching my sisters and mom playing classic Parcheesi.
Mamita took particular gusto in eating everyone and never breaking her bridges. She’d look at her opponents just ahead of her on the board and salivate. “¡Mira toda la comida!” (“Look at all the food!”) Once she rolled the dice and claimed a victim, her face would light up and she’d yell, “¡COMIDA!” And she had a knack for eating more than one opponent in a single turn and advancing half her pieces three quarters of the way around the board. And whenever she had a bridge, she’d laugh at all of us stuck behind her like sardines in a can, missing turn after turn after turn.
She was vicious, but we loved her even more for it. To hear her uproarious laugh always made losing to her perfectly acceptable.
Seven years ago, Mamita passed away after battling Alzheimer’s disease. Of course, it was devastating. We still miss hearing her cackling laugh while kicking all our asses in Parcheesi.
Tournament time! And yes, that’s guacamole to my right. Photo: Sierra Wendeborn.
Recently my family has taken up playing Parcheesi as a way to honor Mamita’s memory. We even started an annual tournament in her honor. The only problem with the game is that the board is limited to four players, and we always have several more people who want to get in on the game. To solve this problem, we began creating our own Parcheesi boards. My sister created a five-man version, and I debuted a six-man board this past January (complete with paisleys and elephants, even dice and hand painted gamepieces to match). 
These mega-games are marathons. Since you have more opponents to eat you and more real estate to traipse through, things get especially vicious and drawn out. The games are always punctuated with Dad’s signature whose-turn-is-it chant: “WHO GO? WHO GO? WHO GO?”, sometimes followed by “ME GO! ME GO! ME GO!” Many games get abandoned in the wee hours after several hours of playing (and drinking and screaming and laughing and keeping an eye on Dad because he cheats like a fiend if you don’t watch him like a hawk).
Today I’m celebrating my birthday at my parents’ house, and I just finished making a seven-man Parcheesi board at my brother-in-law’s insistance. There will be a good amount of family around, so there still won’t be enough room at the gameboard for everyone (plus, even in this family, there are those who aren’t as enamoured with the game as the rest of us freaks). If we play all day, some people will end up ignored. The plan is to start a game in the afternoon, see how far it goes and quit before dinner so we can spend time with everyone there. There’s always the possibility that at some late hour, after the not-so-Parcheesi-obsessed have left/retired for the evening, some Bacardi will be poured, and a new game will begin. We’ll see how well that goes.
And thank you Mamita, for giving us yet another reason to celebrate your life. Miss you. xoxo
What a great telling of a family tradition. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for visiting and reading!
Great read! Your custom boards are awesome. Reminds me of the three-man chessboard they created on The Big Bang Theory (although they went a bit crazy, eventually creating new pieces like catapult, serpent, and Gandalf). With my family (and my grandmother) it was cribbage. We used to play with her all the time until she started losing the ability to play due to dementia. So, I totally relate to your post. Thanks!
Thank you Matt! I’ll have to search out that episode of Big Bang Theory!
Reblogged this on Southeast Valley Activity Project.
Thank you for the reblog!
Parcheesi is my favorite game! I love the custom board. But even more lovely is the story you’ve told here about your family. Thank you so much for writing about this! (And congrats on being Freshly Pressed!)
Thank you Jennifer!
We have parchis marathons in my family too
We’ve only started the tournaments this year, but we’re hoping to do it annually. Thanks for reading!
I’d forgotten all about this game! It was one of my favorites as a kid – I used to play on a holey’s computer game but my fam couldn’t join me because we didn’t have a real board. I wound up making one out of an old pizza box and crayons – lol. I must say, I like your creations better
I invented a few games as a kid using cardboard and markers. Thanks Victoria!
I loved parcheesi as a kid!!! I have looked and looked for one so that I can introduce it to my kids! What a fantastic idea to make your own board!
This reminds me of playing board games with my family, which always turned out to be vicious when we played with one family member in particular. Also, I imagine making a Parcheesi board is very time consuming, but the end result is a lot of fun. Thanks for sharing! I really enjoyed this.
What fun! Too bad these boards aren’t for sale in stores.
Everyone is telling me to sell these boards. I think Hasbro might take issue with that though! lol… Thank you Richard!
Loved reading about your grandmother! It made me think of mine who also died from Alzheimer’s…so sad. My grandmother had a lot of spunk too. Before she died my uncle went to visit her and she did not recognize him. She told him, “If you’d come around more often maybe I would remember you!” She had it until the end. Loved my grandmother!
Congrats on getting Freshly Pressed!
Mamita certainly was full of fire. Her very last word was a Spanish profanity directed at one of the nurses in her nursing home as she was trying to move her to change her bedding.
Thank you Lu!
woah! i had never tried this game before! i think im going to learn this! thank you for sharing!
Thank you, and you’re welcome!
I have never heard of this game… Can you provide more details about it?
It’s a very old game, apparently based on a game (called Pachisi) first played in India in a large outdoor space with real people moving around the board instead of game pieces. Here’s a link to the wiki article on Parcheesi, which includes the basic rules of play:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcheesi
That’s amazing how you made them! My own family board game tradition was my sister cracking the poo-poos and throwing the monopoly board upside down then refusing to clean up the mess. After she’d cheated the entire time.
Nowadays my partner and I have a large, wooden game from England that’s a bit like a pin-ball game that we love to play. I wish I knew the name of it. And we just bought Balderdash to add to the collection. Nerdy? Nahh, I say awesome.
Board games are great (depending a lot on who you play with in my experience haha) so it was nice to see a post about it since people don’t seem to play any more!
Great post.
We didn’t play much Monopoly in my family. Aside from the Parcheesi, there was lots of Scrabble with Mamita. We also play Dominoes a lot, and my husband and I play a lot of Rummy at home. Thanks Jessica!
awesome idea to make your own boards! drunken board game playing is the best. That’s how I met my husband.
lol… I agree! And thanks!
What a great family you must have. Can imagine how much fun those tournaments are.
Congratulations!
Ruth from At Home on the Road
Sounds like great fun! Our game is Trouble, and everyone has their own chants and favorite colors.
As for Parcheesi, I didn’t know that you could go 20 extra spaces after eating someone. I’m so using that next time!!
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Are you willing to sell one of your 5 person boards? We love parcheesi but now have 5 plus players! I want to give it as a xmas gift.
Hi Katie! At this time, I only have one 5-man, one 6-man and one 7-man board, all for family play. None are for sale, unfortunately. I may produce a few for sale in a future Etsy shop, but this is at least a year away.
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