Break the ice with fun
THERE'S lots to look forward to every Christmas - good food, good friends, that new baking cookbook I've been asking for (hint hint). But there are also perils.
Namely: the family.
Don't get me wrong, I love my family to bits, every last one of them (especially my mother and father, both loyal North Shore News readers, who will certainly be flipping through these pages). But for many, this is the time of year where you see the people you haven't spoken to all year, and it takes about a week of studying to come up with a list of appropriate conversation topics. And you have to be careful: A harmless-sounding query of "How was the ferry from Victoria?" is a no-go, for instance, and can induce a frothy rage that those blessed with roads that don't end abruptly in the ocean can't fully appreciate.
Thankfully, my family has devised the ultimate solution: board games.
After a few awkward moments, hellos and how-are-yous, everyone descends to the living room to break out the games. What's more, they make great gifts you can open on the spot.
But before we get into my favourite board games - and as an unapologetic nerd, I feel I can speak with some authority on the topic - first, a few rules.
Rule number one is to choose a game that involves plenty of talking and mixing, not quiet brooding and strategy. No Risk - you do want your relatives to go home eventually, as in before Christmas 2012 - and we don't want to think that heavily over Christmas, especially after the turkey's been served. It should be light, fun, and able to break the ice. It is, after all, winter, so there's lots of ice to break.
Rule number two: take the Christmas spirit to the food bank and the Grinch to the games. A little lighthearted competition is highly encouraged. Nothing gets people excited like the chance to play out old sibling rivalries without getting the property crime division of the local police detachment involved. Aunt Martha with the lead pipe in the garage usually leaves a lot of clues.
You might want to start with games like Cranium and Trivial Pursuit. One of my best family memories comes from the former, when my late granddad Jack, a rather proper British man who was never fond of small talk, was tasked with impersonating Tina Turner. To his credit, I guessed it right. But almost everyone has played these games before, and let's face it: It's tiring to try to remember who once warned "Never eat more than you can lift" (Miss Piggy, by the way), especially after you just thoroughly ignored that advice at the dinner table. So try something new.
A long-time favourite is Telepath. In this game you choose a partner and both of you write the first things that come to mind when you see a particular word or image, gaining points for whichever you have in common. My brother and I make very bad teammates. The best part of this game, however, is you can include up to 24 people.
Kudos as well to Balderdash, which is similarly unpredictable, and forces players to get creative as they are tasked with writing false definitions to real but unusual words that are convincing enough to fool the family.
Apples to Apples is another game perfect for the holidays, and won best party game of 2000 by Games Magazine. Players select cards from their hand they feel are best described by a card played by the judge, but sometimes the match is far from perfect. Players judge which they feel best suits, making the winner completely unpredictable. What does "Risky" make you think of? The YMCA? Cocaine? There is no wrong answer, only answers that don't win you many points.
There's also a special kids version - and a version for everything else. Up to 10 players.
The Game of Things follows a similar track. Cards ask you to write down various "things," such as "Things that you shouldn't throw off a building," and one player has to guess who said what. If nothing else, you might learn how well you know (or don't know) your family. No word on whether "Things you shouldn't buy your relatives for Christmas" is one of the available cards.
If you feel you really must all get along happily on Christmas (Bah, humbug!), there are some co-operative games where everyone works together. In Pandemic, you're tasked with saving the world from a set of fast-spreading viruses, while in Red November, you command a crew of drunken, communist gnomes as they stumble around their collapsing nuclear submarine, trying to survive just long enough to be rescued. A new, updated version of that game was just released this year, and you can certainly get good advice of what other options there are at your local board game store.
