Pandaboo

If you still need a gift for anyone on your list, I highly recommend Pandaboo, if you can find it online. In Pandaboo, the object of the game is to balance bamboo sticks of various shapes on top of the Panda’s tummy and keep them from falling. The person who makes the sticks fall loses. Pandabo was an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Seal Award winner in 2006. Bunny, Man-E-Faces, Duke, Cobra Commander, Destro, and I have spent many afternoons staging Pandaboo tournaments. Pandaboo is a simple yet entertaining game for adults and children. It is also conveniently made of sustainable bamboo. That makes Pandaboo recyclable, as you could just find a real Panda and feed it to him/her. If Bunny and I ever tire of Pandaboo and Karla doesn't want it anymore either, I'll just eat it as a tasty snack.

At first, I thought Pandaboo was somewhat exploitative in that the Panda is at first glance depicted as clumsy and unable to balance himself to hold the bamboo up, but the instructions describe the panda as "wrigley," which suggests to me the Panda is intentionally try to be off balance in order to test the skills of the players. From this viewpoint, the Panda becomes the game's main adversary, and the Panda always wins. It is only a matter of which player loses. I enjoy approaching the game from that viewpoint.