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'Tis the season to be jolly! And what better way to kickstart the merriest of months (come on now, we know you’ve already put up your tree and are knocking back the mince pies!) than with some full on festive themed board games?
My awesome partner in tinsel, Luke, and I have been rummaging through Zatu Claus’ sack. And we have found some cracking Christmas themed games that will have you singing along to Bing and wearing your ugliest of Xmas jumpers! Plus, with these on the table, you can consider your Christmas table decorating done! Bonus!
Patchwork Christmas
Dubbed the Patchwork Queen (for my obsession and not my skills, sadly!), my excitement went into overdrive when the Christmas edition of this puzzly polyomino powerhouse came out! If you don’t know Patchwork, it is a truly excellent two player, spatial tile laying puzzle by Uwe Rosenberg. Using polyomino tiles, you are trying to fill your board. But you can’t just use any piece you like! You have to pick from the three available to you, and even then you can take one if you can afford it in both currency and time! With turn order changing throughout the game, this is an intense two player quilt-off! And with glorious Christmas wrapping adorning every piece in this fabulously festive edition, patching with presents has never been more fun!
Welcome To Winter Wonderland Expansion
Welcome to your Perfect Home is set in the sunny suburbs of 1950s USA right? Wrong! Well not wrong, but no longer right either! For winter has come to the burbs, and we are stringing our Christmas lights along every street in this mom-and-pop, chocolate box town! An expansion to the flipping brilliant Welcome To, you’re still choosing a pair of cards to fill in a house number and action/bonus on your sheet each turn.
But, in Winter Wonderland, every house that you build in consecutive numerical order will also have Christmas lights strung between them. And what do lights mean? You guessed it! Bonus points at the end of the game! With your eyes on getting the longest string of lights in each of your three streets, this Christmas themed expansion will dazzle and delight Welcome To fans this season!
Santa Banter
If you like a game all about rhyming, with a festive theming, then there is not much further to look than Santa Banter from Big Potato games. Now, on the face of it, Santa Banter is Obama Llama in a jolly red suit and white beard and… actually, that’s exactly right. Much like Obama Llama, Santa Banter is played over three rounds and the objective is to earn points for your team. The more points you earn, the more of the 14 Rhyming Pair cards you can flip over. The game is very quick, with each round lasting just 30 seconds per team, and ending when all Rhyming Pair cards are gathered.
The first round takes a card from the green Describe It deck and begins to describe the rhymes on the card without using the words on the card. Round two takes from a pink Solve It card and reads one of the riddles to provide the rhyme. Round three is effectively Charades as the yellow Act It cards are in play and you act the rhyme out.
For each answer on the cards your team guesses, they score a point on the scorecard. For every line of three you fill in, you get to flip two cards over and attempt to make a match. When they match, you can claim the pair and get to guess again. The team with the most pairs at the end of the game wins.
I think that Santa Banter is a better version than Obama Llama because I personally don’t feel like playing a game of rhymes more than a couple of times a year and ideally with different groups. By the time Christmas rolls around, I’m playing with both my and my partner’s families which really satisfies that itch. It also means my mum gets her Charades game in after a long day of cooking.