Must- Have Games to Play This Holiday Season

When our family gathers, we eat lots and play games.  However, with our wide range of ages, finding a game that everyone can play and enjoy themselves is a challenge. On Christmas Eve our family stretches the night by playing games and enjoying a progressive dinner. Why would we want to extend the night you may ask? If the kids are up late- the children go to bed out of exhaustion! Without a fuss—usually. Most importantly, if we arrange the progressive dinner to have dessert be the furthest house from our place, the kids fall asleep on the drive home Christmas Eve. Win-win.

Have you enjoyed a progressive dinner before? The meal plan is simple- every family is in charge of a course of food. Appetizers, Salad, Soup, and Dessert. Depending on the time frame we will play games while or after we eat too. By driving to everyone’s houses, you get to sight-see all the beautiful lights, decorations in homes to admire and most importantly, by the end of the night the children are begging to go to bed on Christmas Eve. Which is awesome.  So try a progressive dinner with family this year!

When it comes to New Years Eve we stretch the night away by eating lots (do you sense a pattern?) and playing games. Oh Betty do we love to play games! We play easy non-thinking games, fast games, children games, and lastly we play strategic games where we spend the night plotting our next move. And no, I’m not talking about Risk- that terrible waste- your life away for days-game. Here are some awesome games, perhaps some you have not heard of yet… the Must- Have Games to play with your family this holiday season list below….

Family- Friendly Games:

Slamwich:

My four year old got this game for his birthday and we love the silly cards and the fast-paced game. The concept is simple- if two matching cards sandwich a different card- slam the deck of cards. But watch out for the darling ant or dog stealing the sandwich or someone can steal the collective deck of cards. The person with the most cards-wins!

Sleeping Queens:

With a family full of girls, we love all things Princess-y and this card game is the perfect combination of memory, imagination and creative mathematical learning. My six year old caught on to this game quickly, knowing only a king can wake up a sleeping queen but watch out for the dragon card that can steal a queen or the potions bottle card that puts a queen back to sleep! The person with the most Queen cards (equally to 50 points) wins! The art on these cards truly make the game worth playing because they are so silly. We love this game.

Hungry Hungry Hippos:

A classic (and very noisy) kid game that my kids love playing. I think the game should include a set of ear plugs. 😉

Pictopia:

We also love Disney in our home. This is the perfect game for a mixed age group of people to learn some fun Disney trivia while allowing the kids to feel involved by showing pictures and asking questions they could know answers too. Another great family game to play.

The Joker Fun House:

This was an accidental find at Ross (oh how I love this bargain store!).

The whole reason I picked up the game was because of the superhero picture for my superhero obsess little boy. This game is hilarious and my kids and our adult family loves playing this with the kids.

Everyone chooses a superhero and uses their super power to help them win the game, however one member of the group plays the Joker role who has his own simple rules to stop the heroes and escape- winning the game for himself. Our competitive family loves playing this game while taking on the role of hero and villain quite seriously.

 

Duck, Duck, Mouse!:

This game is a crack up. When my kids are extra hyper, I pull out this game. The game comes with adorable Mickey ears for one person to hide throughout the house. Everyone sits in a circle and one at a time everyone flips over a card. Usually they are Donald, or Daisy duck cards. But when someone flips over Mickey or Minnie Mouse card- they have to look at the color and find that colored ear in the house. Set the timer and the kids are off! The trick is to make it back to the circle with your correct colored ears or else the card goes back to the pile for someone else to find. And if you find another set of ears- leave them there! A super hard concept for little ones, but once played this game is riot and an added bonus-their endless energy is depleted a smidge.

Playing games with the kids is fun and all, but don’t forget the adults! When we have our kids settled for the night in bed, or when the kids are distracted with popcorn and a movie we pull out these big-kid games…

Big Kid Games:

Escape- the Curse of the Temple:

This is a face paced game that requires music (as a timer) and quick thinking as each member rolls the dice as fast as possible creating the correct combinations to open rooms, collect treasure and most importantly- to escape the cursed temple with your treasure. This is a fun game that our kids have played with us, but is defiantly more fun with adults.

Ticket to Ride- Europe version:

What I love about this game is the geography, learning where the major cities are in the countries is fun. The mission of this game is to create connecting train stations from one city to the next. The catch? Everyone adds their own train tracks during their turn. Watch others and be strategic with your train placements or you’ll have to rethink your plan or pay! Person with the most completed train routes and points- wins!

Legendary:

A fantastic deck building game involving super heroes. I realize at this point I sound super nerdy having a game that is centered around the Marvel Universe. But believe me, even the most non-nerdy super hero person will find this game cool. The point of this game: be a super hero, create a team of super heroes and defeat the villains terrorizing the citizens.  The game is more complex and has lots of elements especially since every hero and villain have different powers.  The best part about this game? No matter how knowledgeable or not knowledgeable you are about superhero’s you will have fun and learn lots foo. Plan to spend a few strategic hours playing this game because you don’t want the bad guys to win! We got this game last year for Christmas and we play it two to four times a month. What fun!

What do you like to do Christmas Eve? Do you stretch the night out like us? Or do you go to bed early? Ha! Sorry that’s such foreign concept to me. 😉 What about New Years Eve? If you like to play games and haven’t tried these ones out yet- there is still time to add them as gifts under the Christmas tree.

Merry Christmas!

Morgan