The festive season is approaching. And when people think about spending more time with friends or family they often think about getting the best board game and want to know what is the best Christmas board game? However, there are a number of challenges with that question; do you want a Christmas themed board game, a gift to go under the Christmas tree or a game to play and perhaps the biggest what one family thinks is a fun game may not be enjoyed by another family.
We all have different plans for the holidays and this post will help you decide on the board games for your family Christmas plans. There will be different numbers of people, different ages, different amounts of time and levels of interest in games. Some people will be reluctant to play games as their memories are classic board games like Monopoly, but with the large choice of family board games now available, there will be something that works for your gathering.
Here are my tips for discovering what type of board game you are looking for. If you want more help on selecting an exact game, read my post How to choose a board game.
Buying board games
Where I have them, I’ve included links to my reviews or Instagram posts. In other cases I’ve linked to Amazon for ease. These are marked with * and if you buy something after clicking the link I will earn some money. However, please consider supporting a specialist board game shop. They often have great prices, and you can be confident you are getting a genuine version of the game (yes, people sell counterfeit board games).
Finding the best Christmas board game for your whole family
To help you select the best holiday game, there are a few questions you should answer first:
- do you want a Christmas-themed board game or just a great game?
- are you wanting to play the game during Christmas or are you giving it as a gift?
- who will be playing?
- when will you be playing (how will the game fit in to your plans)?
Games to play at Christmas
Christmas themed board games
At this time of year, you’ll find lots of shops start selling board games for Christmas. These are often a holiday edition of an existing game, with a few that are unique. If you want a Christmas family board game, my advice is to use the following tips and make sure what ever you select fits your plans. I don’t remember ever playing a Christmas themed game, so I’ve done some research to get a list of games that have good reviews.
- Ghosts of Christmas* – a trick taking card game based on a Christmas Carol
- Christmas Tree* – a tile laying game where you’re trying to get the best decorated tree
- Santa’s Workshop* – a worker placement game where you direct elves to collect materials and build gifts
- Dice Throne: Santa v. Krampus – a 2 player game where you attack each other using dice rolls
- Ugly Christmas Sweaters – who can design the ugliest sweater using cards
- Animal upon Animal: Christmas Edition – who can stack their wooden shapes on the snowy hills first. We loved the original version of this so recommend this for younger kids
- Holly Jolly* – you collect points by placing lights or tinsel cards on to a central tree
- Welcome To… Winter Wonderland* Pack – In Welcome to… you create a neighbourhood based on the cards turned over. This pack gives you Christmas theme paper to draw your neighbourhood. You need the base game to play.
- Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries* – collect cards to build train lines across the Nordic countries.
Large variety of ages
It can be tricky to find family-friendly games that are fair and fun for all ages. I recommend staying away from general knowledge or trivia, and if there are very young children involved avoid games which involve reading or spelling (it really slows down a game when you have to ask them to interpret their writing). Consider games like:
- Taskmaster* – amusing challenges e.g. drawing a cake with your eyes closed
- Dixit* – can you guess the correct abstract picture card from the clue?
- Codename pictures – picture association in teams
- Make ‘n’ Break – a dexterity game with differentiated challenges, so the children can have easier ones
- Magic Maze – you work together to move characters around a shopping mall, but each person can only move them in one direction – and you can’t talk!
- Tsuro* – place tiles to build paths that your dragon has to follow
Highly Competitive
Some families take great pleasure in playing highly competitive games where the focus is on who will win the game, possibly with gloating for years. We don’t play a lot of these games, so I have limited experience, but here are some suggestions:
- Anomia* – instead of saying snap when your cards match you have to give the quickest trivia answer
- Staccups – who can stack all their cups the quickest? Although you’ll find this in the games for kids section, trust me when I say it gets very competitive among adults. It is a frantic game.
- Ice Cool* – flick penguins around the school, one person trying to capture the other penguins and others trying to avoid them
- Throw Throw Burrito* – card game where you collect cards, but with occasional throwing of soft burritos at the other players. This is a crazy game.
Games for the fun of playing
Sometimes you want to have family fun without keeping score or paying attention who has won. Time for party games. We own all the following games and know we’ll always have a great time with them.
- So Clover* – linking random words together for others to guess
- Just One* – word association again, but if more than one person gives the same clue they are all removed so the guesser has fewer clues to help them.
- Telestrations – this is similar to Chinese Whispers / Telephone game but using drawings. If you are looking for grown-up games there is a version called Scrawl which is very funny.
- Concept* – a bit like charades but using a board of pictures to give the clues
- Time’s up Party – starts like charades, but each rounds gets hard until you’re are using just one word to describe a person
Co-operative games
In co-op games you play as a team and either win or lose together. There are many brilliant games in this category. They are particularly useful if you want to keep arguments to a minimum or there are different levels of experienced players.
- Magic Maze – you are all moving the same pieces around the board, but each person can only move them in a certain direction – and you can’t talk
- Forbidden Desert – you need to find the components of an airship so you can escape, but the land keeps moving due to sand storms
- Pandemic – you need to find the cure for 4 different diseases by sharing information from around the world
- Mysterium* – as a group of psychics you get visions about a murder, and you need to work out which is the correct vision
Long games
Long games are great if you want an evening of fun, or you want to keep people occupied for several hours. They are often more complex so you probably want to read the rules before Christmas.
- Sleeping Gods – this is an original game where you exploring a map creating your own story (this is the longest game, it took us about 12 hours – over several months).
- Terraforming Mars – a tile laying game where develop Mars from the current lifeless planet to one that is habitable
- Hogwarts Battle – a Harry Potter deckbuilding card game. The early years are quick, but they build in complexity and length as you progress through the story. Our Year 1 game took 10 minutes and Year 5 over 2 hours (we haven’t played year 6 or 7 yet).
- Dead of Winter* – there has been a Zombie apocalypse, and you need to get food and protection for the safe colony, by exploring outside. Probably not considered a family game for young children.
Quick plays
Sometimes you just want a simple game that will fill a spare 15 minutes, with minimal set up.
- Tsuro* – place tiles to build paths that your dragon has to follow
- Just One* – word association again, but if more than one person gives the same clue they are all removed
- Happy Salmon* – an absolutely silly game where you are trying to find matching cards using hand gestures and possibly shouting
Flexibility
Sometimes you want to play a game, but also know that people may need to duck out e.g. to watch children or cook dinner. These games allow people to leave (and possibly join) without impacting on the game play.
- Codenames – team based word association – can you guess your words before the other team
- Just One* – word association again, but if more than one person gives the same clue they are all removed
- Concept* – a bit like charades but using a board of pictures to give the clues
- Anomia* – instead of saying snap when your cards match you have to give the quickest trivia answer
Problem solving games
If you want to solve a mystery, there several games you can try, some fall under the broad heading of escape room type, but all of them have a problem that needs solving. Note these are usually one time plays.
- Exit – escape room style game series
- Unlock* – escape room style games with an app to check answers, give clues and time you
- Adventure – choose your own adventure style game
- Chronicles of Crime – explore locations and interview witnesses using the app (some of these crimes are not suitable for children)
- Suspects – you get to interview the witnesses of a crime before deducing who is the culprit.
Large groups
Over Christmas you may be looking for games that play more than the traditional 4 or 5. You can sometimes buy expansions that let you increase the number of games, but all these play at least 6 players in the basic box.
- Dixit – can you guess the correct picture card for the clue?
- Anomia* – instead of saying snap when your cards match you have to give the quickest trivia answer
- Codenames* – team based word association – can you guess your words before the other team
- Concept* – a bit like charades but using a board of pictures to give the clues
- Just One* – word association again, but if more than one person gives the same clue that word is not given to the guesser
- Telestrations* – similar to Chinese Whispers / Telephone game but using drawings
- Tsuro* – place tiles to build paths that your dragon has to follow
- Mysterium* – as a group of psychics you get visions about a murder, and you need to work out which is the correct vision
Quirky games
Perhaps you want a game that is different to the usual game so your festive game becomes a family legend as people remember it for years to come!
- Micro Macro Crime City* – you use a large image of the city to solve crimes, where’s Wally style (looks cute, but you may not want to share all the crimes with your children).
- Ice Cool* – flick penguins around the school, one person trying to capture the other penguins and others trying to avoid them
- Chronicles of Crime – explore locations and interview witnesses using an app and QR codes (some of these crimes are not suitable for children)
- Potion Explosion* – create potions by drawing marbles from the board and creating “explosions”
- One Night Ultimate Werewolf* – a social deduction game, can you work out who is the werewolf (just to add I’m dreadful at this game as it turns out I can’t bluff)
- Mysterium* – as a group of psychics you get visions about a murder, and you need to work out which is the correct vision (one of you will play the ghost giving out the visions).
Choosing your Christmas board game is the first step. The second step is to learn how to play the game and the third is to teach it to the other players. I recommend you learn it in advance. If you are giving the game as a gift and can’t open the instructions, look for details online. You will probably find the written instructions, but possibly more helpfully videos explaining how to set it up and play.
I hope these tips help you find a game that is perfect for your Christmas and helps you spend quality time together. Do let me know in the comments what are your favourite Christmas board games and which have become a family tradition.
*Disclosure – this post includes affiliate links which means if you buy something after using it I will earn some money from the seller for suggesting you visit them. However, it will not cost you anything extra.
