5 Old Holiday Games That Prove Your Grandparents Were Insane

Despite sounding like some type of prison-gang hazing ritual, Hot Cockles was a popular Christmas game during the Rococo period of 18th-century France. According to this how-to video helpfully put together by the good horn-dogs at the BBC, while some spankees kept it clean by cupping their ear to the designated lap, many quickly recognized the game's sexy, sexy potential and dove in nose-first. We're assuming those games didn't last very long before giving way to other sorts of fun, also involving spanking.

via telegraph.co.uk
Judging by the women's hands, the guy just farted and the player is getting the worst of it.

The rules, as described in New Zealand's Evening Post back in 1934, require you to gather a handful of pretty girls "if possible" (you may dress Uncle Bob all frilly-like if need be) and then bid on them. Each players gets the same amount of fake currency, and the objective is to buy up as many slaves as you can. So it's like fantasy football, only with more human rights violations and even less dignity. Whoever has trafficked the most humans at the end wins, and if there's still time left until midnight, just shuffle the slaves and start over.

However, the game isn't as simple as it sounds -- there's some strategy to be had here:

Evening Post
Suggestions for when there's too much family around and a massive orgy isn't an option.

Yes, a true master of the slave game waits for bargains while attempting to goad the other players into overpaying for "Janet's saucy eyes." If that's not enough, both the auctioneer and the slaves will try to troll you into spending too much, and if you let them get to you, you'll find yourself with no money and just one slave at Christmas Eve's end. What could be sadder than that? Other than being the one slave, of course.

The Post doesn't say if the winner gets to keep their slaves or not, and Googling "slave trade rules" just got us kicked out of the library. Since the paper's offices weren't immediately burnt to the ground, we're going to assume the answer was not.

If Player 1 was successful, Player 2 was eliminated and replaced with somebody else. Of course, such a sophisticated game involves a lot of strategy. On offense, you could answer yes and then immediately move out of the way to avoid being hit, while on defense, you could use a popular technique called "cheating your ass off." It was apparently not uncommon for the Moriarty-seeker to remove their blindfold and pummel their opponent mercilessly -- but in a classy, gentlemanly way, because this was the Victorian era, after all. What's more, the audience was discouraged from alerting Moriarty about the hornswoggling, leaving his increasingly mushy brain to figure it out on its own.

Margaret Rhodes
You'd kill so many brain cells that you couldn't just "walk it off" afterward, because you'd have forgotten how.

We're surprised that the game hasn't made a comeback in today's hyper-aggressive, road-ragey culture. Not only is it a perfect way to let out one's anger, it would give newspapers their first reason to exist in about 15 years.

Promoted as a fun way to stay in shape (because, for some reason, smokers seem to have trouble keeping themselves in tip-top condition), the race would see men on one side of the field and their very best girls on the other. The guys would race over to their main squeezes, who would attempt to light their cigarette. Then, back to the starting point, and whoever made it there first with a still-lit cigarette won ... emphysema? Yellow teeth? We're not sure, but it's not "a long life."

This wasn't as simple as a gaggle of out-of-breath guys running around while women flashed open flames in their faces, though. Not only did these ladies have to light 'em up, they had to do so in a manly way. It's right there in the rules: "They are not allowed to strike [the matches] on any part of the ship, on a match box, or on the soles of their shoes, which leaves 'man fashion' practically the only way in which they can ignite the matches."

Eugene_Onischenko/iStock/Getty Images
"Does that thing have a 'matchbook' setting?"

Putting aside the ridiculous notion that setting a stick on fire by sliding it across their shoe or a fucking boat isn't manly, exactly what the fuck were these girls supposed to do? Well, according to the game, they're just supposed to be all woman-like and useless: "The efforts of some of the women to be mannish is often extremely humorous, and the inability of many women to ignite the matches in that way often loses the race to a swift man." Yes, the ones not running around with a tube of cancer in their mouths are the stupid ones.

After more interesting forms of entertainment, like records, TV, or not setting your house on fire became popular, Snap-Dragon died out. Mostly, anyways -- if you run with the right (wrong) group of people, you might find yourself breaking out the Sun-Maids, dousing them in spirits, Hendrix Guitarring those sumbitches up, and heart(burn)ily chowing down. But don't forget the official chant, lest you ever forget the true meaning of Snap-Dragon:

Here he comes with flaming bowl, don't he mean to take his toll
Take care you don't take too much, be not greedy in your clutch
With his blue and lapping tongue, many of you will be stung
For he snaps at all that comes, snatching at his feast of plums
But old Christmas makes him come, though he looks so fee, fa, fum
Don't 'ee fear him but be bold, out he goes his flames are cold
Snip! Snap! Dragon!

johnnygoodtimes.com
Smaug's treasure is way shittier than Tolkien made it out to be.

Jason Iannone writes columns, edits articles, lays out other articles, and interviews fascinating people. If you ever find Moriarty, let him know via Facebook and Twitter.

For more ways your deranged forebearers entertained themselves, check out 5 Classic Board Games With Disturbing Origin Stories and 6 Beloved '80s Toys With Bizarrely Horrifying Origin Stories.