As the big festive dinners end and the slow food coma starts to sweep its way over your guests, it's time to get out the sugar filled desserts, coffee, and games to kick the party into second gear.
I love board, card and trivia games and play a lot of them. It's one of the things I really look forward to when getting together with my in-laws. We usually stay up pretty late with goodies and drinks, busting up and having a blast. And as the night goes on it can get a little rambunctious as people start diving off chairs and across tables to grab the last 'spoon'.
Games are a good release and a great way to keep the party going and get your guests laughing and sharing in a fun way at the end of the evening after the stress of the holiday preparations have come to a close. Here are a variety of great games you could pull out to end your holiday celebration on a good note.
1. DICEcapades
2. Bezzerwizer
3. Catch Phrase
4. Apples To Apples
5. Pit
6. Beyond Balderdash
7. Urban Myth
8. Mad Gab
9. Chuck Klosterman's HYPERtheticals: 50 Questions For Insane Conversations
10. Gestures
11. Loaded Questions
12. The Settlers of Catan
13. The Game of Things
14. Curses
15. And a good 'ol deck of cards. With a sexy, modern, design twist that is ;)
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Urgh...we invited neighbors over for pizza to our home and they brought a board game for children (their 11 yr old joined us for dinner). We were less than thrilled by the board games idea but maybe it was because our guests arrived half an hour late, spent the first 10 minutes on their cell phone, and the pizza was cold by the time we all ate it. Who wants to play a board game after that?
Blokus is also a fantastically simple game that is surprisingly lots of fun - it's meant for 4 but we've played in teams of 2 to spread the fun.
Apples to Apples is always a winner at parties. Target has a special version called Sour Apples to Apples and if you're bored of the original version, this one mixes things up a bit. I love Settlers, but not sure it's great for parties. We've been playing a lot of Fluxx lately, too. It's easy to learn and changes every time you play.
i still love cranium too.
My husband, a board game aficionado, swears by Wits and Wagers for a party game.
Wow, I feel out of things -- I never heard of any of these!
if you haven't played Bananagrams, its like a cross of scrabble & crossword puzzles on speed. Its a fun quick game.
http://www.bananagrams.com/Our_Games/Bananagrams/
I've got a few that are pretty darn fun:
Last Night on Earth
Ticket to Ride
Acquire
Bang
Guillotine
There should be something in there for everyone. I've played 75% of the post's list and don't care for most of them. These are better.
The games listed so far are fine, but you're missing out on some good times if you haven't discovered these yet.
Glory to Rome
Agricola
Carcassonne
Trollhalla
Take It Easy!
Small World
You can read about dozens more at http://funboardgames.org/the-games/
There are hundreds of really good board and card games published every year. If you're really into playing board games, you might also want to check out http://boardgamegeek.com
I got Urban Myth for Christmas a few years ago and promptly gave it away after only playing once. We got a question regarding the "Twinkie Defense" and Harvey Milk, it said MYTH. However....they don't give ANY other context as to why it's myth. The end. Very frustrating.
There were a few other questions like that too, only involving MYTHs of course, but I say where's the fun if you don't also learn something. Perhaps the internet culture of yelling negative nothings at a stranger is the reasoning.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE GAMES!! So fun. I wish more people would play. It's hard for me to get my husband to get into it, but I just love it. Catch Phrase and Mad Gab are my personal favorites.