14 winter games

Toilet toss

Game prep

• Discarded toilet or bucket
• Plunger

How to play

Got an old biffy in your back 40? Here’s an outrageous curling creation from the townsfolk of Almo, Ont. Their annual Plunger Plop revamps the sport by using a toilet as the house and plungers instead of stones. Twelve curling sheets are created on an outside rink and a toilet is set at both ends of each. With 48 teams, players try to score 10 points. Circles drawn in spray paint around the “house” allow scores of one and two points. To adapt the Plunger Plop for the cottage, use a single toilet or bucket. Plungers scarce? Players can line up to toss snowballs. Use food colouring and water to make the “house.” If you prefer to aim higher, use snow to mark a bull’s eye on the side of a tree. Take turns throwing at the target.

Fowl bowl

Game prep

• Frozen turkeys (or a substitute)
• “Bowling” lane

How to play

Looking for a new cottage tradition for your holiday turkey? Then take a gander at an event spotted a few years ago at a cottage-country carnival. Adults rolled frozen turkeys to knock over pop-bottle pins set up on an outside bowling lane. Kids bowled Cornish hens to topple small water bottles filled with ice. If you’d rather not bowl your bird, try this variation at the cottage. Fill two empty soup or coffee cans with water and freeze. Fill 10 two-litre pop bottles with five centimeters of gravel or sand to make bowling pins. Clear an 10-metre-long alley on the ice and make a starting line with stones, twigs, ,or food colouring mixed with water. Players get two throws each, with pins cleared between throws. One point is scored for each pin knocked down. The player with the most points wins.