Last Updated on April 30, 2008

Apple Bobbing

This favorite party game of yesteryear gets a make over… for birthdays so bring on the apples!

Most everyone has have heard of the harvest party favorite game of bobbing for apples. It’s just good clean fun…or was it? Let’s see at the onset of cold season let’s all gather around a big tub of water laden with floating apples. Next we will all plunge our faces into the same tub in a literal head to head competition to see who can successfully snag an apple using only the mouth. No matter how hygienic you try to be there is bound to be some slobber cross contamination under these circumstances. This concern has seen bobbing for apples party favorite disappear into the past.

Everything old is new again

It’s time to bring back the apples. Thinking outside the tub will open a whole vista of apple bobbing games to liven up any party! Instead of having one tub with many heads inserted into it, try individual buckets for individual heads. This can be very fun. Start with each bucket on the table or floor; on the signal of ‘go’ players dive in and attempt to catch their apples. The first one to sink their teeth into their red delicious and hold it aloft wins. Good clean fun and all you need is a few buckets, some water and of course the apples.

Apples and oranges

A twist to challenge those apple bobbing experts is to add other fruit to the tub. Try adding one apple and a peach, nectarine and an orange. The stakes are higher since they not only need to catch their quarry without hands; they also need to find it under water.

Totally out of the tub

For younger children, or anyone else who may not think the idea of submerging ones head in water constitutes anything resembling fun, this is a creative deviation that captures the spirit of apple bobbing. You will need a string and a dough nut for each player. Suspend the doughnuts from the string. This can be done by hanging them from a clothes line, a curtain rod, or along a table edge. Be sure to allow space for each player. As play begins and those pastries begin to swing the extra space will be appreciated.

Each player stands or lies beneath a single doughnut. On the mark of go they begin to eat using only their mouths. The first one to finish their doughnut wins. Choosing a filled, or powdered variety of doughnut may increase the mess factor, but it also increases the fun and challenge!

If hanging doughnuts sound like too much trouble then the game can be played in teams. The first team will hold the doughnuts from a string for the second team, then switch. The winners are the team that eats the fastest.

Anyway you slice it bobbing for apples is still fun, so get creative and have some good clean fun.