Keeping adult(ish) children at the table - game recommendations?

[Mmmkaay]

This year, my 2 DSs (15 & 22) and DSD and DSS (21 & 23) are coming for dinner on Christmas Eve before spending Christmas Day with their other parents. I want to make it feel really festive and Christmassy, DH wants to cook a lovely dinner for them, and what I'd really like is to make the meal leisurely and fun, rather than a gallop to finish and get opening their stockings. So, I'd like us to play some easy but fun games to make it last a bit longer - they're all adults now and should be able to relax around the table chatting rather than treating it as a perfunctory rite before retreating to the sofa with their phones! Any recommendations? Not massively complex games needing a lot of prep as DSD doesn't have a lot of patience! Also, does anyone have any ideas for making the evening feel extra special? Thank you!

my family enjoy Herd Mentality. Can be played with any age

Newmarket the card game! It’s brilliant. You just need two packs of cards and a load of pennies and 2ps

Pass the pigs!

Last year we had crackers with a ‘who am I?’ game inside, and we also played a Christmas version of Articulate between each course.

Look for some crackers with an activity inside such as Robin Reed musical bells can be v funny and something to do as a group. Others have racing reindeer or santas but that would need the table clearing.
Articulate is good. How about a music quiz in the evening? Spot the intro or similar. Those kazoo music games are also fun. You could make your own by buying kazoos and having a bank of songs for people to play and others to guess.
Enjoy.

they're all adults now and should be able to relax around the table chatting rather than treating it as a perfunctory rite before retreating to the sofa with their phones!

Table games sound fun for everyone, but they shouldn't be a requirement to keep adults at the table. Sitting round tapping on your phone when they have come round for dinner with other guests is really rude. Your post makes it sound as though they're six year olds at the local Harvester needing a children's activity pack to keep them happy!

Clues and twos
Herd mentality
Rapidough
Cranium
Trivial pursuit in teams?

They're definitely old enough to know that going and sitting on the sofa with their phones is no on!

Do a family quiz (requires preparation)

Who said that Mummy looked young enough to be our sister in Corfu in 2015? Was it a) the waiter, b) the boatman ...etc

Carcassonne - it’s a been a great hit in our family and DS and his GF (mid 20s) have introduced it to their friends who’ve also become enthusiasts

Yep, it does sometimes feel like that!

Don’t you just pass the wine / port / rum around the table and, erm … converse?

Ahh I have heard of this - is it relatively simple to set up?

My teens love Scattergories and Blockus is great.

Agree with Herd Mentality , have just bought the Christmas expansion pack, but this wouldn’t be needed. 6 second scribble also good and has a very small box which is good.

I think (from reviews) Carcasonne is a longer game c45 mins, so might seem like too much of a commitment and would need table clearing.

We found the Taskmaster crackers a disappointment last year but maybe we were too small a group and too sober.

generally I’ve had a lot of success with getting game recommendations from MN and then checking a few reviews as well eg on boardgamegeek. Hope you have fun!

Nothing wrong with games of course. But it sounds like a massive parenting fail all round if young adults can’t sit around a dining table with other family members and take part in leisurely after dinner conversation.

What do they do on dates? Sit opposite their date and stare silently at their phones?

Carcassonne is dull as shit sorry. It's not a fun, lots of laughter, keep people atvthe table game.
It's more a ' dedicate a long afternoon to playing' game.
I love board games but I go and read my book when Carcassonne comes out.

We love the werewolf game whenever we get together. Its really simple and we use the app to narrate. Nothing wrong with having a game as backup in case the conversation petters out.

If there are enough people (and they’re at least a bit pissed) I always liked ‘killer’. You all take a card, whoever gets the ace or whatever is the ‘killer’, and has to wink as surreptitiously as possible at others, to ‘kill’ them. It can be quite hard to catch the killer!

What I don’t like is anything that makes someone at the table look or feel stupid, because they don’t ’get It’. I still remember one occasion when ‘My aunt Sal from Mississippi’ went round the table - ‘…she likes coffee but she doesn’t like tea’. Etc.
Eventually one poor girl was left after everyone else had got it (Aunt Sal only liked anything with double letters, so running but not walking, etc.)
It had taken me a while to get it, so I felt really sorry for that girl, made to feel stupid.

Uno!

'Confident' is a good game, my lot love it as do my extended family when we get it out.

The sock game. Sounds stupid and supersimple but it’s incredibly fun and we were surprised how everybody got so competitive. We had players age 4 to 75 and everybody loved it. We have 35 games every few hours when it’s a family get together. We often do scratch cards for prizes too which everybody loves.

Write well known names on post it notes, stick to cracker hats if you're having those and let them ask each other yes/no questions to guess who they are.

I buy a 'people magazine and cut out loads of faces of pop stars, actors, politicians and stick them on A5 cards. Give them all pen/paper and pass them round for them to write down their answers. Make some difficult angles or lesser known.

We have a long held tradition of eating dessert by candlelight while someone reads 'Twas the night before Christmas ' poem. Being doing it since the children were young but mine in their 20s now still remember the magic.

@waltzingparrot I love that Night before Christmas idea.
Ours used to enjoy singing Grandma got Run over by a Reindeer on Christmas Eve! Not as sedate.

Uno
mount cleverest
Scattegories

This year we’ve bought More or Less - our young adults are 17 and 22

This year

This looks v fun and silly - thanks!