Before you know it, you’ll be guffawing and heckling each other over some friendly competition like the social butterflies that you are – emerged from those quarantine chrysalises.

The moral to the story here is that you don’t want to show up to the party without a game. Let us introduce you to your lawn game savior: Gnome Bowling. IPA Gnome Bowling is exactly like regular bowling, but with gnomes! Except that there’s only 6 frames instead of 10. And there are no lanes. And the ball’s smaller and doesn’t have holes. There’s also no fancy screen to tally your scores. Nor is there an automatic pin-resetter-thingy. Or a ball-returner-thingy (what do you think golden retrievers are for??). Or that little fan thing that dries your hands (who uses that?). BUT otherwise, nearly identical.

Our handy dandy Gnome Bowling set includes 6 gnomes and 1 bowling ball. You can secure one of our limited-edition sets for yourself from our online Schwag Shop, or fashion something similar with those DIY crafting skills you picked up over the last year (we’ll leave ya to figure that out on your own).

HIIIIIIIGHLY OFFICIAL GNOME BOWLING INSTRUCTIONS:

• Line up your Gnomes like bowling pins (triangularly; 1 bottle in first row, 2 in second, etc.)
• Walk about 12 steps from the pins and make a line (you can go longer or shorter, there are no refs – unless your most anal…ahem, detail-oriented friend self-appointed themselves as such)
• Stand at the line and roll the ball to the pins (if you cross the line: MARK IT ZERO!!!)
• Each player gets 2 tries before that player has to reset pins for the next bowler’s turn.
• Your Score = Number of Pins You Knock Down (unlike regular bowling, there’s no extra points for Strikes … that’s just too much math to keep track of when you’re havin’ fun)
• IPA Gnome Bowling has 6 frames (like a 6-pack) so keep score with chalk or pebbles or something.
• There are plenty of regional and hyper-local variations of IPA Gnome Bowling, so feel free to add your spin (no pun intended, we swear) to the game.
• Go play.