Cheaters Gonna Cheat, Even on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is finger food and game-playing night for Thevictorians and Sis's in-laws at my sister the ex-mayor's wife's house. This year we had a new game. A game where you put a paper plate on top of your head, and follow directions to draw a holiday scene. There's even a rubric for scoring!

Here are a few results:

That's mine on the left. Val is detail oriented, and wrote down part of the scoring on the top of her plate AFTER the drawings were scored. Let the record show that Val is not trying to pretend she printed so neatly on top of her head out of sight. As you can see, Val scored 9 points. She is not disputing the score of 13 on the right-hand plate, a many-ornamented tree drawn by her adult niece. She got FIVE points just for ornaments touching her tree. But Val is not a sore loser. Nor a cheater. A judge was consulted to see if Val's present would be considered UNDER the tree. And she was given the thumbs-up.

What gripes Val's gizzard is the outrageously inflated score of Hick, the 11 he gave himself for this piece of work on left, below:

That is creative scoring at the very least. The Pony, plate on the right, was at least honest and embarrassed enough to scratch out his meager score of 7. He has never been known as a drawer, and takes after Hick, who is kryptonite to Pictionary teams.

Let the record show that scoring was as follows:

2 points if the tree touched the floor
2 points if the stocking touched the mantel
1 point if the star was above, or touched, the tree
1 point for every ornament on the tree
1 point if the fireplace did not touch the tree
2 points if the present was actually under the tree

Let's evaluate Hick's masterpiece, shall we? YES! I answered for you.

I'll give him...

2 because his tree was indeed on the floor
0 for the stocking, because it was on the floor and in the fireplace, NOT touching the mantel
1 because the star was above the tree
0 for ornaments, because those things are NOT ornaments
1 for the fireplace not touching the tree
1 for the present under the tree, even though it must have been hidden in a trapdoor in the floor

That gives Hick 5 points. Not 11. Even The Pony did better.

Hick drew his Christmas scene like a spider making a web on LSD.

I call HUMBUG on Hick's creative scoring! Thank goodness there was no prize for this game.
We are a cut-throat crew when it comes to competition.