That’s what we’ve been up to.  Okay, sure, there was the flu fun and of course there’s chickens, schoolwork, and work work.  But lately whenever we have an hour free we pull out the games.  It’s awesome to have kids old enough to play the ‘grown up’ games, but we’ve got favorites for all ages and options for times when we want to play, but haven’t got the brain power for anything too strategic.  Check out a few of our favorites!

Dominion–original and our new Christmas hit, the Seaside Expansion.  I’m trying to find words to describe this game, and considering cheating and copying someone else’s review! lol  The goal of the game is to use your hand of cards and deck to gain money and buy land cards.  At the end of the game, the person with the most land wins–something I happen to believe applies to real life, too! ;)  You can play the game ‘straight’ with each person mostly just playing their own cards and hoping for luck to go their way, or you can use attack cards and throw a wrench into your brother’s (or son’s) game play.  Since you play each game using only ten active, or kingdom, cards and each of our Dominion sets includes 25 or so kingdom card possibilities, there are lots of different combination to play from and no two games need be alike.  This is the game we play the most, and our go-to favorite!

Apples to Apples.  I know it’s not new, but it’s still a fun quick game for those times when playing together is more important than strategy stats.  We actually prefer the Jr. version, as it’s got more cards allowing for loose interpretation (i.e. matching spinach with dangerous) and fewer trivia cards that are quickly dated not to mention boring.  Which opinion of trivia cards has nothing to do with the fact that I stink at trivia! lol

Pick Picknic.  This one’s going to be hard to find, and might even be out of print.  But it’s worth searching for if your crowd is under twelve, mostly in it for the laughs, or prone to arguments with other games.  In other words, most groups playing games!  On the surface it takes no strategy to play and be competitive (which makes the little kids happy) but those who want to can also indulge in double-psych attempts to out guess their opponents.  Best of all, you can play a round or two in twenty minutes without rushing anyone!

So those are a few choices that go beyond the hour long chess match or cheating at battleship.  We do have on additional holiday tradition that kind of falls under the games category–putting puzzles together.  This one is fanciful and lovely, but was also surprisingly challenging.

The color swirls were deceptive, the pieces irregular.  It took us a full afternoon and morning! lol  But puzzles are another fun way to go, as even if everyone isn’t equally good at spotting pieces, they can still jive at those who are finding them to find faster!  Cause, hey, what else are friends and family for?

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