Little known fact about me: I am was a Champion Apple Bobber.
That’s right, every time I bobbed for apples as a child, I dominated. I was generally the only person at the party who was more-than-willing to stick my entire head into the bucket and push the apple to the bottom so I could grip it in my larger-than-average mouth.
Half the fun was the drama of flipping my sopping head up out of the water triumphantly.
Fine. More like 7/8 of the fun.
Anyway, when my soon-to-be 9yo declared that he wanted to bob for apples at his party last week, I had one of those glowing mommy-moments where I loved that my son wanted such an old-fashioned game instead of having a Wii tournament.
So I enthusiastically agreed.
And then realized something that never occurred to me in my days as Apple Bobbing Champion of My World back in the 80s.
Bobbing for apples . . . is rather disgusting.
Open mouths all going into the same vat of water, one after another? Noses too?
Grody to the max.
So this mama-who-is-a-germaphobe-but-tries-desperately-to-not-let-her-”issues”-affect-the-childhood-experiences-of-her-kids started thinking.
I headed to the dollar store and picked up seven slightly-bigger-than-face-sized large bowls.
Seven . . . because there were going to be seven kids at the party.
It was totally worth it to me to spend seven dollars to avoid being totally grossed out or responsible for the spread of who-knows-what diseases among the third-grade boys of my small town.
I placed two apples (one large and one small) in each bowl and then Hubby filled the bowls with water. I said “Go!” and the kids got to bobbing. We congratulated the first to come up with his first apple, and then everyone continued to re-bite their apples and perfect their personal apple-bobbing techniques.
The snot-streaks on wet, happy faces and hundreds of tiny pieces of chewed apple bits in one of the bowls confirmed that my new method of apple bobbing . . . was genius.
I’m linking this up to The Mommy Club over at Crystal and Co!
Oh this story struck a funny bone with me and made me laugh til my eyes watered. Love it!! Reminds me of the time I took all the little 3rd grade boys home from my sons birthday party as they all practiced burping the alphabet. It was enlightening. Being a girl, it never occurred to me.
Yes, Peg . . . that sounds very much like the ride from the pool to our house last week!
Great idea! I wonder though, what did you do with the bowls now that you’re done in order to keep them from cluttering your home?
They’re going in next month’s donation pick-up!
Why didn’t I think of that!? It’s a perfect solution! I, too, have avoided this “old-timey” game (my 14yo and 9yo have NEVER done it), due to my own “mommy issues and yuke-factor”. But we will give this a try this fall!
Thank you, you genius, you!
I am going to pass this idea on to my friend who has a Halloween party with apple bobbing every year.My boy’s have never participated because they too are germ phobic, so you are not alone in thinking using one big bowl is gross.
that is a fabulous idea!!! I am going to add this to pinterest under cool ideas.
Truly an inspried idea! I’m like you in that the gross factor never occurred to me as a kid, but as an adult, just thinking of it when I saw your post title made me go EWWWWWWW!
You can also put them on a string and hang them from the ceiling. First one to take a bite wins (no hands). It is much harder than it sounds!
I think I’ve done that at a party before!