'Tis The Season For Foreclosures, Bankruptcies, and Rent Arrears...

Pete - the king of Christmas outfits - even has a Monopoly-themed jumper!

"Christmas is a very busy time for us, Mr. Cratchit. People preparing feasts, giving parties, spending the mortgage money on frivolities. One might say that December is the foreclosure season."

- Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine), The Muppet Christmas Carol (1982)

What better way to truly capture the spirit of Christmas than another round of the ultimate game of capitalism?

This month's chosen Monopoly board theme was Christmas, with a glorious board marked up with various elements of the traditional Christmas holiday season.

From the selection of metal playing pieces, Pete picked the Snowman, I was the turkey, Rachel was the reindeer and Clare took the role of Christmas elf.
 

The playing pieces

The themed board

For the longest time, it felt as though none of us were buying up properties but once I got hold of the "Snowman" (The Park Lane of Christmas Monopoly) I was gripped with a determination to get its pair ("Santa" aka Mayfair) and then live off the rents I could garner from those unfortunate enough to stop in that corner of the board, just before "Go".

I eventually managed to purchase "Santa" off of Clare, but hadn't planned on my property portfolio shrinking to just those two locations and "Chimneys" (one of the "power companies").

My early property portfolio

My "cunning" trap takes shape

Reasonably quickly I then built four "grottos" (houses) on both of those locations, but didn't actually have the cash to replace them with a pair of red "workshops" (hotels), until someone actually landed on Snowman and coughed up the hefty rent.

People started setting aside "Tim cash" in their bank accounts, readying themselves for landing on either Santa or the Snowman.

Although, in all honesty, it was more a threat than a reality as the dice certainly working in my favour and tended to hop people over my two properties and past "Go".

There really was something going on with the dice last night, not only were we rolling an awful lot of doubles but there appeared to be a statistically improbable number of double sixes in that mix.

All these doubles - and a penchant for simply landing on "Go To Jail" - saw a lot of us ending up in the Big House. At one stage, after Clare had declared bankruptcy, Rachel, Pete and I all found ourselves in the pokey at the same time.

Rachel, Pete and I all end up in jail at the same time!

I actually tried to stay in jail for as long as possible every time I got sent down (no doubt on some tax fiddling charge), in the hope that people would stop on my valuable land while I was twiddling my thumbs... and thus bulk up my bank balance.

Once Pete had managed to bankrupt Rachel, that left vast tracts of land as mortgaged properties that Pete couldn't afford to develop.

He had workshops dotted around two sides of the board, while I just held on to my corner, but by this time I was sitting on a pretty hefty pot of money.

With the game now grinding on, the clock ticking past 11pm, and only Pete and I left in it, we agreed to call it a draw, taking "four points" each in the league table, instead of the standard "five" for a win.

Entente Cordiale: In the spirit of Christmas, we shake hands on a shared victory

The Monopoly Club League Table, as it stands at the end of 2023

It was agreed that this was a well-designed Monopoly set, with plenty of suitably infantile opportunities for giggling as juvenile innuendos (which prompted Rachel to enquire about the possible exitence of a "rude"-themed Monopoly).

The only thing really going against it was the difficulty of reading some of the cards and locations as they were quite "busy". I also felt the counters were on the small side, but I think I might have been spoiled by Simpson's Treehouse of Horror set which has set the bar very high.

Grading the themes of this year's Monopoly sets

Halloween Special: "Another Case of Monopoly-related Violence, Chief!"

Yes, they glowed! No, we didn't play in the dark!

After a summer hiatus, Monopoly Club resumed last night with a Halloween special, in the form of The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror-themed board, complete with glow-in-the-dark figurines.

The thought that had gone into the theming of this set was obvious, and much appreciated, from the names of the locations (all drawn from Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons) to the quirky "fate" and "trick or treat" cards.

And let's not forget that instead of houses and hotels, you're building "tombs" and "mausoleums".

The production values of this Monopoly set were top-notch, with easily readable cards and large, chunky miniatures that meant even I couldn't mistake which character was which once we were mid-game.

Winning the dice-off to see who'd go first, I chose Comic Book Guy In Superhero Costume as my character, Rachel was Alien Maggie, Clare picked Count Dracula Mr Burns, and Pete was Bart-Fly.

The beginning of the end of my property empire

I got off to a thundering start, accumulating a broad spread of property, but that was also, ultimately, my undoing. Having blown my wad on all those locations, I ended up with little cash to pay rent when I landed on other people's properties.

Hence the early departure of Comic Book Guy.

WORST. GAME. EVER.

Conversely, Pete had an incredible turnaround after a slow start, developing with his Mausoleum Empire that systemically picked everyone else off, one after another.

Rachel followed me into oblivion, a poor showing from the Knight household, having seemingly spent a disproportionate amount of time in jail again (as is her wont).

Clare hung on into second place, but eventually couldn't cope with the crippling cost of landing on a series of Mausoleum plots established by Pete.

This means in the group leader board (see below), Pete is now the indisputable leader of the pack and Clare has slipped past me into second place.

Rachel's 1:12 scale dolls house Monopoly set made a cameo appearance as we were wrapping up for the evening and debating the choice of themes for future evenings.

Clearly too small to actually play, but the dolls house Monopoly is still very cute

At Pete's suggestion, we have also started logging ratings (out of 10) for each of the themes, inspired by the universal love for the care and attention (and playability) of the Treehouse of Horror set.

The current proposals for future games are the Indiana Jones set next month (my choice as it's my birthday month) and then the Christmas-themed set in December (naturally).