The Definitive Ranking Of Sleepover Activities

All of these are better than sexy pillow fighting.

21. Pillow Case Decorating

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Was there any worse activity than having to fruitlessly hot glue-gun glitter on a pillow case while someone's mom watched you like a hawk? Decorating pillow cases was worse than no slumber party at all.

ALL moms thought this was a good slumber party idea, and yet NO mom wanted your janky, paint-pen colored pillow case anywhere near the rest of your stuff. Was this just a passive aggressive way for moms to get back at other moms for making them host a group of loud kids?

20. Playing Pranks On The Host's Parents Or Siblings

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Every sleepover had one kid who thought that "playing a prank" was the same as "being a total asshole." This never, ever went well.

That kid gave everyone else at the party incredible amounts of anxiety, especially in delicate slumber party situations, where the host's parents were already getting cranky. This was because their behavior was usually the thing that could get the whole party cancelled, and for what?

That kid didn't deserve slumber parties.

19. Watching Movies With Your Friend's Siblings

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Parents were notoriously bad at foisting younger siblings onto a slumber party, insisting that the younger sibling in question "just wants to hang out" and that "it's his/her house, too!"

But everyone knew better: younger siblings weren't there to hang out, they were there to annoy your friends and, barring that, to gather precious intel about your life, which could definitely be used against in a parental court of law.

18. Freezing The Underwear Of The First Person Who Fell Asleep/Putting Someone's Hand In A Cup Of Water

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Best case scenario, The Friend Who Thinks This Is A Great Idea lost interest before this happened. Worst case scenario, the host's mom found underwear in her freezer, one of your friends was crying, and what seemed mildly hilarious the night before became a race to see who could distance themselves the fastest from The Friend Whose Idea This Was. ("I don't even hang out with Melissa, mom!")

17. Crafts In General

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All other crafts besides pillow case decorating were fun until you turned 10. Then, all of them steadily plummet into lameness.

Even worse was the ol’ crafting bait-and-switch: When you got to a friend’s house, only to learn that the only thing on the menu was crafting AND it was your friend’s idea… that friend didn't get to host slumber parties anymore.

16. Light As A Feather, Stiff As A Board

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This game was way less fun than Bloody Mary, because the results were very rarely up for debate: either your friend levitated, or they didn't, and if they did, all of you probably injured your fingers in the process.

Also, if you were the fat friend, this game was absolute torture.

15. Attempting To Stay Up All Night

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There was always one friend for whom staying up all night was basically priority number one. If anyone ever attempted to sleep, Captain Vampire would make it their personal mission to complain them into wakefulness. Usually Captain Vampire had very strict parents.

This was always an activity that seemed like it would be fun to try (just to see if you could do it!), but was more fun to “attempt” before 1 a.m., after which you were just exhausted, and it also made the next day terrible.

14. Morning-After Breakfast

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Morning after breakfasts were a universal crowd pleaser because no one was old enough yet to care about calories. This activity loses fun points, however, because while you were eating your delicious pancakes or whatever, you were usually a little sad about having to go home in an hour or two.

13. Bloody Mary

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IF Bloody Mary was your thing, slumber parties were prime Bloody Mary time: all your friends were together, at night, and had access to a private bathroom. Obviously, there was no better time to figure out whether or not Bloody Mary was real than when you could definitely outnumber her should she decide to show up.

12. Choreographing Dances

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Choreographing dances was totally awesome if you based your dance off of a music video, and totally horrible if one of your control-freak friends tried to choreograph it herself, or if someone clutched their pearls and worried that their parents were going to find out that they were air grinding to Britney Spears, somehow.

It was extra horrible if you could not dance, but this could be salvaged if your friends were good people and didn't care.

11. The Ouija Board

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The Ouija Board was a constant source of drama at every slumber party, which is arguably what made it so much fun. Someone was always trying to move it. Someone was always scared that it might summon a demon. Someone would always protest the Ouija by deciding to play Monopoly in the other room and shit talk on all the girls who were still playing with the Ouija board.

While you always hoped that you might figure out that your friend's house was haunted, what usually ended up happening was that you got two friends who were both determined to spell different things, and then you spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out what your new demon friend "MARKELLY" meant about "BLOKD KNIHELLS"

The only people who liked the Ouija board were the jerks who were always moving it, and the other jerks who knew it was fake, but liked to laugh at everyone who was scared. But if you were one of those jerks... this was basically the best thing ever.

10. Makeovers

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Sometimes, this activity was an amazing chance to play with you and all of your friends' pooled make-up resources at once. If your parents didn't let you have make-up at all, this was basically like going to Vegas for you.

On the other hand, your friends might do a hellacious job making you over, and then all agree that you look better than you did before, to your horror.

THE WORST was that one friend who wanted to cut everyone’s hair and insisted that “it’ll be fine.” Why was that girl always bullying people into letting them cut their hair?

9. Karaoke

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Karaoke was all the joy of choreographed dances -- gotta make that imaginary music video! -- but half of the work, because either you knew the words, or the words were provided for you.

This activity loses some points, however, because it had a great risk of being prematurely broken up by parents, or derailed by The One Person Who Takes It Too Seriously And Gets Mad When You Sing Their Song.

8. Truth Or Dare

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On the one hand, Truth or Dare was a classic, go-to game that could be a lot of fun.

On the other, it usually devolved into Truth or Truth. This was because coming up with dares was really, really hard, and when you did come up with a dare, it was usually something too ambitious like "run around naked" or "call this dude and tell him you want to sex him." No one was about to do any of that stuff, and after awhile, even coming up with truths could get difficult... how many crushes could one person possibly confess to?

7. Calling Boys And Then Hanging Up When They Answer

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Calling someone you had a crush on and then hanging up as soon as they picked up was one of the singular greatest rushes of your childhood. Even if they didn't like you back, for one second while they hung on the line waiting for you to respond to their "hello?" you had ALL THE POWER.

This activity gets extra points because you can enjoy it even if it is not you making the call; your friend calling their crush and hanging up is just as exhilarating, but with none of the risk. Also, that friend who actually said something was basically a god.

6. Watching Scary Movies

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Watching scary movies with your friends was amazing, because it was basically the platonic version of cuddling with someone while it was snowing or raining outside. Plus, it allowed you to secretly see movies that your parents would otherwise not allow you to see, without having to see it with your jerk older brother or someone else who was not willing to hold you when you were scared.

Bonus: when you parents eventually found out and got mad, you could blame it on someone else's parents.

5. Massage Trains Or Playing-With-Hair Trains

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Until one person got tired, and the rest of your friends fell like dominoes, this was five of the most amazing minutes of any slumber party.

Also, god bless that one friend who decided that she was the expert of massages and felt the need to prove it by spending hours rubbing everyone down.

4. Pigging Out On Stuff Your Parents Won't Buy

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When done correctly, a slumber party was basically the only place on earth where all free junk food had diplomatic immunity and you were free to line your face with as many Cheetos as you could find.

3. Never Have I Ever

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The second most fun slumber party activity that ever was. Never Have I Ever is Truth or Dare? perfected, because you never had to waste any time trying to figure out what your dares would be.

Furthermore, it doesn't single any one person out; everyone playing must answer the same questions, which prevents any one person from ganging up on anyone else with bizarrely specific questions that may or may not end in tears or fights.

2. M.A.S.H.

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M.A.S.H. was THE best slumber party game: while it is initially less fun than Never Have I Ever, it is also less risky to play, because there are no secrets you can tell in the game that can be used against you later. The beauty of M.A.S.H. is that it allowed you to embrace your feelings for your dream life (and your dream crush) while still being able to blame it on M.A.S.H.

Plus, no one at the slumber party could go and blab about it later unless they also wanted to implicate themselves for having participated in the same the M.A.S.H. game. It was the perfect crime.

1. Having Pizza Delivered

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There was literally nothing on earth more exciting than the sound of the doorbell when the pizza arrived during a slumber party. The pizza showed up usually when the evening was young, when everyone was still well-rested and excited for the party ahead. But the pizza arriving meant that the party -- and all it's dishy, dancy, amazing glory -- was really, truly beginning.

The smell of fresh pizza was really the smell of hope.