Christmas, it’s the most wonderful time of the year! Or at least that’s what the song leads us to believe. While we all look forward to having a few days off and spending some quality time with our families it can also be quite a trying few days keeping everyone entertained and amused. At the end of the holidays some of us find ourselves being thankful that it only comes round once a year. So we’ve compiled a listed some of our all-time favourite family games for anyone looking for some inspiration to keep the whole family happy this Christmas.
Board Games
- The Logo Board game
This is one of my favourite board games. Our everyday lives are full of logos, whether its food, football or fashion. The LOGO board game is all about those logos AND the things wrapped up in them. The LOGO board game taps into the knowledge that we've piled up over our lives & adds a few astonishing facts and surprises to entertain the whole family. It's easy to learn and fun to play. Just answer the questions to leap around the board. The first player to answer correctly in the winning zone - WINS!
- Monopoly
An obvious choice but we couldn’t compile a list of family games without including it as Monopoly is one of the world’s most popular games ever published. Players in monopoly compete with one and other to buy, rent and build properties all the while trying to avoid going to jail or going bankrupt.
- Cranium
Use your humming, drawing, sculpting or impersonating skills to win the game of Cranium! Cranium includes 400 challenges in 4 categories: star performer, word worm, data head and creative cat. Take on another team head-to-head for faster gameplay. Spell, puzzle, act, hum or just guess your way to victory within 4 categories! Keep advancing around the board by successfully completing challenges.
Party Games
- Pictionary
Not an artist? No worries. This game is actually more fun if you can’t draw. Get ready for loads of laughter when your team can’t decipher if what you’re drawing is a banana or an airplane! You can create your own game set with a white board and some fun words to draw written on small pieces of paper.
- Charades
You can never go wrong with a classic game like charades. Simply split into teams and then have one person from each team act out a movie, book, or TV show to see who can guess the answer.
Things
If you have never played The Game of Things, get ready for some side-splitting laughs. One person is “it” and will say a statement that will have a thing as the answer, such as “Things you shouldn’t do while at work.” Everyone then writes on a piece of paper something that shouldn’t be done at work, such as sleep. The person who is “it” collects all the answers and reads them out loud. Then they go around the room letting people try match up a person and an answer. If they are correct, they get a point, and the person whose answer was guessed is out. Continue going around the room until one person is left.
Card Games
- Go Fish
The aim of Go fish is to collect the most sets of four cards. Five cards are dealt to each player and the remaining cards are placed face down in a pile. Randomly choose a player to go first. On your turn, ask a player for a specific card rank . For example: "Jenny, can I please have all of your 9s." You have to already hold at least one card of the requested rank. If the player you ask has any cards of the requested rank, she must give all of her cards of that rank to you. If you get one or more cards from the player you ask, you get another turn. If the person you ask has none of the requested cards, they say, "Go fish." You then take a card from the top of the pile. If you happen to get a card of the rank asked for, show it to the other players and you get another turn. However, if you get a card that's not the rank you asked for, it becomes the next player's turn. You keep the drawn card, whatever rank it is. When you collect a set of four cards of the same rank, show the set to the other players and place the four cards face down in front of yourself. Go Fish continues until either someone has no cards left in their hand or the draw pile runs out. The winner is the player who then has the most sets of four.
- Spoons
This game is played by sitting in a circle with one less spoon in the middle than there are participants (kind of like musical chairs). Each player starts with 4 cards in their hands. The goal is to get 4 of the same rank. As a deck of cards is passed around the circle one card at a time, your goal is to find a desired card and then discreetly exchange it for one you want to discard from your hand. Once you get 4 cards of the same rank, discreetly get a spoon from the middle. When other players notice that a spoon is missing from the middle, they all must attempt to grab a spoon as quickly as possible in order to not be the only one left without one.
