We bought ourselves a Nintendo Wii for Christmas, but because Sarah’s brother and sister have been in town for Thanksgiving, we opened it early so the whole family could enjoy it.

And enjoy it we did.   The first game that comes with the system is Wii Sports, which we used a lot the first couple of days.   The kids had a good time flailing their arms in Wii Boxing, and more often than not, they landed just as many blows as we did using our well-planned techniques.

We also got Wii Play because it includes another Wiimote and Nunchuk.   It has a few interesting mini-games, but not much that will hold our attention for extended periods of time.

The biggest hit of the season at the Shefchik house has been Wii Fit, which tries to keep you healthy through exercises and balance games.   It comes with a washboard-sized Balance Board that weighs you, tells you your Wii Fit Age and lets you do all kinds of fun activities.   It keeps records of who has done the best on which activities, and the Top 10 rankings are a big motivator.   (I’ve constantly been trying to best James on top of the lists for each activity — and I’ve gotten most of the records on our system already.   Now that James has gone home to California, I’m confident that I can hold the titles for all of the major games.)

I also got Guitar Hero III with a couple of Frontman guitars.   My brothers have all of the iterations of Guitar Hero for the XBox 360 and I’ve fought an addiction to it at times.   I haven’t had as much chance to play my own version in the last few days since we got it (the kids are always asking to play other games, plus I wouldn’t want to play Rage Against the Machine with 4-year-olds around), but so far I’m not as impressed with the Wii version as with the Xbox.   The guitars I have aren’t as nice as the stock GH guitars.

The only reason that Sarah wanted to get a Wii is because it encourages activity, waving the Wiimote around or throwing punches or lobbing tennis serves.   The Wii is also a very social gaming system — people flock around it.   (So much so that Judy got sick of it and asked us to leave it off for Thanksgiving Day.)   I highly recommend the Wii for families, and it’s just getting to the point where you can find them in stores (rather than waiting for them to come in-stock).   So far, we’ve had plenty of fun with it, and it’s only been a week since we got it out of the box.

This post used to be entitled “Wii Belong” for a little Pat Benatar action, but this is a much better title, don’t you think?