Meaning of reindeer games | Babel Free

Definitions

Activities which exclude outsiders.

US, informal, plural, plural-only

Examples

“The natives are a primitive but gregarious lot. They invited me to join them in their reindeer games, which I did.”

“Transfer to Washington. Transfer to Jefferson. No one at Westerburg's going to let you play their reindeer games.”

“His unhappiness was not due solely to the ravages of adolescence, the eccentricities of his family, exclusion from his peers' reindeer games, or even by living in the embodiment of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. It was all of those things and none of them.”

“It's tough being different in a society where conformity is so very important. Not the type of different that caused you to be picked on by the big kids in grade school because you wore glasses or didn't join the reindeer games, but the type of different that caused you to listen up in class and always do your homework.”

“When socializing it's important that you never talk business unless they bring it up. If you do, you'll find out quickly that you're no longer invited to any of the really good reindeer games. Rather, be a good listener.”

“Some fighter pilot traditions have taken on the air of reindeer games—they are nothing more than something one has to be a fighter pilot to understand.”

“He found all the faddishness of what restaurant or club was in, much less what designer clothes one wore or food one ate, to be depressingly shallow and frantic. In his own private protest, he had long since consciously decided not to play their reindeer games.”

“In my mind I had won. Lyndon was with me and not with Hope so whether the two of them shut me out of their reindeer games or included me, it didn't matter one iota to me.”

“I know reindeer games, and this chick is playing them.”

CEFR level