I grew up in a board game family and my wife also came from a family that liked to roll the dice. Both of us have fond memories of board/card games really ramping up during the holiday season when time was aplenty, everyone could stay up late, and uncles/aunts/cousins were around to join in the fun as well.

Per usual, over this recent Christmas break, we played a variety of different games. This included some that we had never played before until the past few weeks. For tonight’s blog post, I wanted to highlight three of the new games that brought our family together and made the holiday season just a bit brighter.

Hues and Cues – This game brought some serious color to a season that is usually defined by just red and green. The game board is a large, colorful grid with different colors. A player draws a card with a specific color on the grid and then has to describe it to other players in hopes that they will identify it. Sloan and Beau loved playing this with their cousins as it really did stretch their creative thinking. Sid and I liked to jump in as well, both priding ourselves on giving outside-the-box descriptions of the colors we drew.

Hues and Cues is a fun family game that stretches one’s ability to describe colors.

Hearing Things – I thought this game was pretty clever! Hearing Things is all about reading lips. To play, you pick a partner and determine who will wear the headphones first. Once the selection is made, the person wearing the headphones taps a button and a soundtrack of cacophonic noise is emitted through the device. The other person then begins whispering phrases from drawn cards, hoping to emphasize each syllable so the teammate wearing the headphones can read lips well enough to blurt out the phrase (i.e. “Pigeons like to cuddle,” “I’m a dinosaur,” etc.). The adults played this at our big family Christmas celebration and it was a riot. The phrases those wearing the headphones thought the other person said had our family rolling on the ground in laughter.

My sister-in-law tries to decipher what my brother is saying during the game of “Hearing Things” we played at my parents’ house during our family Christmas celebration.

Tower Stack – This game is JENGA! meets Bop It. A balancing apparatus is used to hold blocks but if one side takes on too much weight, you better watch out! I have enjoyed playing this game with Beau because it teaches him strategic thinking and how to perform under pressure. It is simple to learn and easy to set up/put away. No matter how you look at it, this game is perfect for children.

Beau places a piece during a game of “Tower Stack.” Note: I realize the green piece is illegally placed but sometimes you have to tweak rules when playing with a 5-year-old.

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The creativity of board games these days is insane. However, I think the creativity needs to be harnessed with simplicity and practicality to be an effective and fun game. I think the three examples I gave above check those boxes. Let me know if you have any questions about what we played over the holiday break. Don’t Blink.