A PEANUT HUNT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XXIV, 14 December 1895, Page 750

A PEANUT HUNT.

A pleasant and easily ai ranged evening entertainment, suitable for winter or summer Christmas is prepared in this way : First, put in order the room in which you intend to entertain your guests, as any change in the position of the furniture is undesirable after * the party ’is ready. It is a good plan to remove any fragile articles of bric-a-brac or furniture that may be within easy reach of the * banters. ’ Get a good supply of peanuts, according to the size of the room and the number ot your guest. Count the peanuts and record the number. Then let them be hidden in every imaginable, but particularly in every rmimaginable, place. Exercise all your ingenuity, and remember that wits just as bright as yours are to find what you have concealed. Sometimes, however, it happens that a very conspicuous place is the last to be searched.

Now prepare as many little baskets, or receptacles of some sort, as you are to have guests. The little * cab baskets ’ are very good tor this purpose, but boxes or larger baskets will serve as well. A little decoration of some sort enhances the pleasure of the seekers, and at the close of the evening the baskets may be given as souvenirs. The small baskets may be prettily grouped in a large basket, and both may be tied with ribbons. If the company is large, the players may

be asked to * hunt in couples,’ and the baskets may be arranged to match each other. When the hunt begins, those who have placed the nuts are to act as umpires, in case there should be any question as to the first finders, and they must also notice whether all the nuts have been found, and so determine the end of the game. Sometimes a single nut is dipped inink or dyed red, and bidden away veiysecurely, and the person who finds this particular red or black nut is the winner of the game. But generally the prize is given to the person or the couple whose basket shows the greatest number of nuts. The game is usually prolonged until the hostess finds by actual count that all the nuts have been brought in ; but there is a record of one game that might never have ended if the company had waited until the red nut was found. That same red nut, by the way, has been perched in a conspicuous place in the parlour for several weeks, and no one has yet discovered its resting place. Prizes may be arranged for this as for any other game.