Family games to play at Christmas

[ArabellaUmbrella]

This year we will have both sets of Grandparents for Christmas, plus my 2 DS aged 9 and 14, plus my brother in his 40s. I'm looking for ideas for games that we can all play, nothing too complicated, something we can all have a laugh playing. Ideas and suggestions very gratefully received, thank you!

A simple game is "legs": a letter is chosen randomly, and everybody has two minutes to write down as many things (people, animals, objects) as they can think of starting with that letter that have legs. No names allowed.

We have a game called "I don't spy", which we all love, but is surprisingly tricky. The idea is to ask questions about things in the room, about things visible to everybody, except the person being asked the questions, who can't see a thing.

Everyone's names are written on slips of paper, and put in a hat. One name is picked out; that person will be blindfolded, and is known as "I don't spy". They will then pick someone else's name out of the hat. That person will ask them a question about something everyone else can see, such as "what colour socks are you wearing?" or "what is on the table?" or "what's the first book on the shelf?". The skill of the game is to think of a question that I don't spy can answer correctly: this is surprisingly difficult! If a question is answered correctly, the questioner gets a point. Everyone gets to ask everyone else a question.

We all love this game, but we had to agree on some rules:

1. I don't spy must be blindfolded. We tried eyes closed, or facing away from everyone else, but there was too much cheating. Also feeling to help answer questions is not allowed.
2. Questions must be about something everyone else can see, and must be open-ended, so e.g. "are my socks red or blue" is not allowed.
3. The same question must not be asked more than once in a game.
4. I don't spy may only be asked one question about their own clothes, jewellery, etc. This kept being the "go to" question!
5. If someone really can't think of a question, especially near the end of the game, we have some stock ones on paper.
6. No discussion allowed of questions before the game.
7. Questions can be disqualified if they're too obvious, such as "what are you sitting on?".

Linkee (there's a junior version called Dinkee but probably no need with just one younger child), mine loved Junior Articulate. Charades? Who's Who? We've had many a late night Trivial Pursuits session in our house.

Bingo

Telestrations is amazing. It's like Chinese whispers except you draw what the last person wrote (timed, on a small individual whiteboard) then pass it to the next person who has to guess what you drew, who passes it to the next person who has to draw whatever you guessed, etc. Then at the end you look back and mock your friends and family because somehow goat turned into tree.