By Hannah Hayes
What’s the best way to ruin Christmas? It’s not waking up the parents at 5am to see what Santa brought you, and it’s not your Uncle Damo passing out in a garden bed from one-too-many schooners… No, it’s the dreaded time when you pull out the beloved classic Monopoly.
The time when everyone gathers round a table and stews in slow, boiling anger for at least two hours as you all contemplate how on earth Christmas always ends in a game of Monopoly. The game was published in 1935 and since then has sold roughly over 275 million copies. How? Well, it is a modern licensed form of torture. It is a board game so well-known and so beloved, yet so hated and so well known for causing fights, taking upwards of four hours minimum and ending with, well, let’s just say language that isn’t very holly jolly or in the good spirit of Christmas. So why on earth do we all end up playing it?
Starting out it seems nice, kind of like being an 18-year-old; there’s a sense of freedom about the board. You can do anything at this point. That is unless you’ve already had a smackdown battle with your sibling about who gets to be the dog token and who has to be the dreaded thimble, that is then pulled apart by your loving, doting parents who are wondering when the appropriate time to start knocking back eggnog to get through the game is. Usually, one of the oldest members of the family is given the task of banker, as like with regular money you don’t want the youngest to be rolling out the hundreds or doing maths. Monopoly is kind of like the Wild West, there are rules and people know the rules but somehow, they aren’t followed, and everyone becomes an outlaw drawing nerf guns and about to order a duel at sunrise. So much so that Hasbro has established a helpline that’s open from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day. An official helpline. Polls of 2,000 adults said that the most common arguments were about “making up rules, buying a property someone else wants, taking too long, stealing from the bank, and being too cocky when things are going their way.” I don’t know about everyone else, but I know when I was younger, everyone’s strategy was to get the two dark blue properties Mayfair and Park Lane. This is a ridiculous strategy that doesn’t really work because no one ever lands on the dark blue. You are more likely to land on the tax square separating the two. The most sensible properties to secure are the orange, red, yellow and the greens. Trust me, I have ruined lives and put players into a state of mortgages and bankruptcy by holding the reds, yellows, and the greens.
Anyways, I digress; the Monopoly Hotline has experts, not just your regular call centre schmucks, no, actual game experts with the official rule book to instantly settle any disputes and advise on how to resolve common complaints. Now this hotline is all well and good except for when the phone is hung up and a cousin says, “See, I told you so!” and then BAM back to square one where everyone is about to kill each other and has noted whom they are never speaking to again.
I can think of one rule universally that everyone forgets about, which will also make games go faster. When landing on an unowned property, the player who lands on it is allowed to purchase it; however, if they choose not to, it’s meant to go up for auction where everyone, even the player who declined to buy it in the first place, will bid until it is bought by the highest bidder. Do with that information whatever you like. Maybe now Monopoly will go quicker, perhaps everyone will have a good time, and no one will fight? Or maybe it’ll end as Monopoly always does; with someone inevitably flipping the board and then forgetting about the grievance until next Christmas.
Hannah Hayes is currently studying a Bachelor of Creative Writing at QUT. She writes plays and fiction usually in the thriller and mystery genre. She has won first place in the First draft Writers festival for her short story Turn Around and has been published twice in ScratchThat magazine in their Autumn 2024 and Winter 2024 editions. When she is not writing she can be found either reading, scrapbooking or performing Broadway shows for her mirror.
