I’ve always liked playing games. When I was younger board games were a highlight of almost every family gathering. I remember being at my grandparents’ house at Christmas time and playing pictionary or trivial pursuit. My grandparents never played but my parents, aunts and uncles, my cousin and I (we were the oldest cousins, all the younger ones either were rollerskating in the basement or sleeping) sat around the dining room table playing games. Grandma and Grandpa usually sat in their respective arm chairs reading and watching the news - or watching us.

Pictionary was always my favorite. It was fast, loud, and I kicked butt at it. Trivial pursuit was harder to play until I got to high school, then I knew more about history to be able to answer some questions. Although my family had so many expansion decks that you could almost always find a topic you knew a lot about. When we played you could pick from the original edition questions, the baby boomers edition, M.A.S.H. edition, baseball, rock and roll, television, Jr. edition, and about eight others that I can’t remember.

At my house, we have piles of games. There’s Life, Sorry, Clue, Scrabble, Super-Scrabble, Rummikub, Phase-10, Cranium, Trivial Pursuit, Jenga, Taboo, Yatzee, Monopoly (which nobody will play with me), Scattegories, Simpson’s Trivia, Pit, Soloman’s Temple (don’t ask), Carcassone, KIller Bunnies (and all of it’s available expansion packs), and Settlers of Catan.

Although, out of all of those, there are only a few that we play on a regular basis. Killer Bunnies is one of my favorites because it’s easy to learn and there is a rule in the rule book that basically says you can do whatever it takes to win just shy of out-right cheating. Any game that allows bribing, bartering and black-mailing is a fun game to play.

Settlers gets played a lot in our house - I like this one because the board changes every time you set it up - you can have a great game one night and nothing the next.

Tim and Nicole got a new game the other day called Ticket to Ride. You basically build trains from city to city across Europe. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites.

So if you are looking for some new games to play, here’s what I recommend:

Two player - Carcassone, Phase-10, Rummikub, Ticket to Ride

Three - Four players - Settlers, Ticket to Ride, Sequence, Trivial Pursuit

Four or more players - Killer Bunnies, Scattegories, Pictionary, Trivial Pursuit, Taboo, Monopoly