For me, the holidays means playing lots and lots of board games. Apples to Apples was last year’s ‘family gift’ and has become a favorite for all of us. So if you’re looking for a board game present recommendation, here it is!

The premise…

It’s simple: There’s a red deck of cards with random words (my favorites include “penguins”, “William Shakespeare”, and “tyrannosaurus rex”) that you hold in your hand and have to match to green cards. These have adjectives (“awesome”, “spooky”, “useless”), and the players take turns judging each round. So it’s a game about language, but you also have to know your audience – despite protestation, I selected “t-rex” as the winner for the card “elegant”. What can I say, they’re adorable.

It is indeed hilarious.

Because you have a limited hand of cards, you are forced to put down nonsensical comparisons all the time. My entire family is quite competitive, but this is the only game in which we often don’t keep score, because it is simply that fun.

P.S. What are your favorite board games?