A Christmas Game – do you have favorites in your family? You probably have some downtime during the holidays when everyone needs some distraction – and a way to connect. Maybe you pull out the boardgames… What are your favorites?

Games are a solid way to build memories as a family.

Even if your family comprises you and your spouse right now, building pleasant memories is an important way to grow together. Once you have children (or the adult children return to visit) then playing games becomes part of your history as a family. We underestimate the importance of these small pleasures. And once these pleasant memories are made, how do you revisit them? How do you talk about the good memories, and share stories? Christmas is a perfect time to talk about our good memories and make new ones.

Here’s a Christmas game for your family to start conversations and tell stories…

Use a Scrabble board and all the letters so everyone has access to every letter. Begin with the words, “BABY JESUS” on the board and then take turns putting words into the puzzle which represent a Christmas (past) memory.

As each person places their word onto the board, tell the story about what that word represents.

We played this game at Christmas!

It was both fun and insightful to hear the stories the kids had from their childhood Christmas memories.   It also allowed us a glimpse into the Christmas traditions our daughter-in-love grew up with.  All-in-all it was a lovely way to share good stories! And, no, we didn’t keep score of any points.  (We’re not a very competitive family).

This date night idea was introduced by online friends, but we adapted it for the family. Here’s the link to the original post on the Romantic Vineyard’s website – with the date night game instructions.

Another one of our holiday traditions as a family is to do “plates”. 

Do you need a Scrabble game? Or maybe some extra letter tiles?