Great Games for Christmas

This is the ultimate board/card game gift recommendation post! We love playing games and enjoy playing with our family and as a party! Here are some of our favorites broken up into different categories:

Educational games

Wildcraft is a game that teaches how natural herbs and plants can help heal common ailments. The game is cooperative so everyone works together to finish the game play!

Scrambled States of America is a book and also a cute video on Amazon Prime. The game is a lot of fun and teaches state facts like nicknames, geography, and state mottoes!

The makers of Bird Bingo also have Bug Bingo! The illustrations are beautiful! We love this game!

Ticket to Ride is also a great introduction to geography! It is a game of strategy and the "First Journey" is easier to play than the traditional Ticket to Ride game!

Strategy Games

Like Ticket to Ride, Catan has a junior version that makes the game play easier for elementary age students.

Gamewright has amazing strategy card games! Loot is a fun pirate game where you collect cards with gold coins but also use pirate cards to attach other merchants!

Sleeping Queens is an easy strategy and luck card game with clever pictures and characters!

Sushi Go is another fun card game to collect points by combining cards during your play!

If you are a nature lover, many of the Jr. Rangerland games are a lot of fun! We also have "Skunk in the Campground!" Camp Scramble is a fun card game!

Kinoptik City is a really fun building toy. Not a game, but a great "fidget" type activity we keep to use as a background activity while listening to audio books! You use the tiles to create your own city and then the plastic sleeve makes the dots seem like they are moving through the building!

This just makes the classic game of charades really easy because all the words are chosen for you and appropriate for children! The cards have 3 words on them and a dice is thrown to choose the word on the card. A sand timer is also included!

All the Apples to Apples games are fun! We love playing the Bible edition with our family! The kids version with pictures is also a hit with our children!

HABA games are classic and educational! We love playing this estimation game as a family and highly recommend it if you have elementary age children and younger! Rabbit Rally

Quirkle is an easy and fun party game similar to scrabble only with colors and shapes! There are also a lot of variations to the game to buy online with cards, cubes, and more!

Beat That is a game that includes all the supplies you need for Minute to Win It games! Ping pong balls, chopsticks, stacking cups, and hilarious challenges that you can compete as individuals or teams!

Cranium games are also a favorite in our house! We have the classic Cranium, some card games, but our favorite is Whoonu! It's similar to Apples to Apples in my opinion. You use betting chips to wager points on what someone likes in order of favorite to least favorite! Amazon prices are crazy so look for this one on ebay!

The rest of the games are all games from the Exploding Kittens creators! My 12 year old son is a huge fan of all these games!

Poetry for Neanderthals is so fun in a group! If anyone uses a word with 2 or more syllables you get smacked on the head with an inflatable club!

Only a 2 player game but A Game of Cat and Mouth is so fun! You use a CATapult to get a ball into your opponents side of the game board!

Exploding Kittens is my 12 year olds favorite card game! The graphics can be gross (boy humor) but it is a fun card game of strategy and luck!

Throw Throw Burrito is the best party game for boys with lots of energy! My poor mom was not prepared for the ruckus that happened at our dinner table! When you play cards there are rules to follow and if you don't, you get a burrito thrown at you!

I hope some of these games are a blast for your family! Let me know in the comments what your favorite board game is!