Scrabble time!

The holidays are perfect for Scrabble.

Turn off the TV, get out the board, pour the adults some red wine. Crack open a bag of Doritos. And create a new holiday tradition.

Here's the Scrabble board from our game last night. Because our son's seven, he gets to double his score at the end of the game. He won, handily.

We helped him by showing him how to find an "open" letter on the board and build on it. We asked him what vowels he had, and suggested words like "cake" or "hope." It was exciting for him to get triple letter scores and double words.

It was a nice, quiet, family evening. All three of us had some laughs and most important, we shared some quality time together. The great bonus is, playing Scrabble will increase your child's ability to work (and play) with words.

You're looking at RIF, aren't you? That was mine. About 30 points - not bad. I don't know what it means, but it was in the Scrabble dictionary, so it counts. Thirty points.