Top Family Games for Christmas Day!

We love playing board games as a family but rarely get the chance to all down together and play them due to work, swimming lessons and after school clubs, but with Christmas and New Year around the corner I shall be dusting off some of our old and new favourites and planning some proper games nights.

Our favourite family game is one we can all play –  UNO Extreme!  We fell in love with the game of UNO when it first came out in 1992 and as the years have progressed the game as been transformed into a few different guises but this is by far our favourite.

UNO Extreme! game’s random card shooter offers an exciting, frenzied and unpredictable way to play UNO that’s fast fun for everyone. It comes with a special electronic card shooter and an exclusive “extreme hit” card. Push the launcher button on the shooter, and if you’re lucky, nothing will happen. If you’re not, the shooter will fire a stream of UNO cards making a variety of sounds to further increase the excitement. You can also keep the cards in the shooter so the unit is both portable and storable.

The random card shooter makes the game more even, so even the most skilled player suddenly ends up with a hand full of cards when they least expect it.  Prepare for whoops of delight and cries of despair and don’t forget to shout “UNO” when you get down to your last card!!

Another firm favourite is Pictionary. My husband and boys are really good artists and then there is me who really isn’t, but gives it a good go anyway. The latest version of Pictionary which is a game of quick sketches and hilarious guesses, features a different board for faster gameplay. There are also two levels of clues (1,200 adult and 800 junior) so that the whole family can play.

This year I am looking forward to Isaac joining the older children in a game of Scrabble, the classic battle of wits and words where every word counts! Designed for 2 to 4 players, in Scrabble you must make the best word you can using any of your seven letter tiles drawn at random. Your word must use a letter tile already in play on the board, and scores are given for letter values and boosted by premium squares on the grid.

The one game that gets really competitive and seems to go on forever is Monopoly. Hubby is always the banker and always wins – I think there may be a bit of cheating going on! This year we are going to invest in the local version of the game as I think the younger ones will enjoy it more if they know where the places are.

What are your favourite games to play as a family?