Fun Friday…HoldEm

Tonight we’re having a 40th Birthday Celebration for my hubby! We’ll be breaking out the snacks, sodas, and cards, for a fun night of Poker and friends…

Here’s a post from several months ago to give you an idea of how/why we started hosting these fun events:

It’s Fun Friday once again and I’d like to borrow a few words from my dear friend Gladys…I love Jesus but I gamble a little! Tonight is P-P-P Poker Night at our home and it’s always a great time. We’ve been hosting these events regularly for the past 4-ish years and they’ve grown from a small group of ‘men’ from church, to a much larger ‘co-ed’ bunch.

Our goal was to provide a place to play ‘Hold Em’ that would be cheap (no one has to take out a 2nd mtg on the house to buy-in), we don’t allow alcohol on card night (helps keep the tempers in check), and so far things have run very smooth. I think the first night we hosted a party we had 16 men and our last event had about 35 total…and plenty of us were ladies.

We realized after the first party that it was great to have a bunch of guys from church over to hang out…but felt we might be missing an opportunity to reach out to others as well. What about the non-believing neighbors, family and co-workers who also love to play?

In the beginning a few of the women were hesitant to join the men at the tables. It didn’t take long for that to change and now we have many ladies who play and enjoy (regularly) giving the guys a ‘run for their money’!

At least once a year we host an event that 100% goes to charity. Since the hubby is a cancer survivor we have a night dedicated to raising funds for the American Cancer Society. In July we had our fundraiser and we raised over $1500 in one evening of fun! Everyone is always extremely generous and we change the rules to allow extra buy-ins and add-ons when it goes to such a terrific cause.

We’ve had guests who have become dear friends, a few have visited church with us (I guess Christians who play poker aren’t as scary in the opinion of some people-hehe), so… it feels like its been a success in several ways.

Tonight is the night so I need to get busy cleaning and helping my hubby set up. We have a basement that is about 400 sq. ft. where we have tables set up and it’s perfect for hosting card nights. I think the worst part of the whole thing is the ‘clean up’…if you’ve ever scrubbed a bathroom after 20-25 men have used it, you’ve felt my ‘pain’. Once we even found chocolate cupcake mixed in with the ‘splatter’ on the floor (nasty for sure)!

I know there are varying opinions on whether gambling is acceptable for Christians or not…but its been a ton of fun and as long as people continue to show up… the ‘Poker Pad’ is OPEN… so let’s “Shuffle up and Deal!”

Tagged as: Cancer, Friends, Fundraiser, Gambler, Outreach, Poker, Texas Hold Em