Nowadays, when we all spend too much time in front of the screen, it’s like we’ve forgotten about board games. Well, it’s time to turn back those times and introduce these games to your kids. Start with card games, as they will give you countless options, and your children will never be bored. It’s a way to spend quality time together. Here are some fun holiday card games for the whole family that you can enjoy.
Spoons
Here’s a game that’s easy to learn and fun to play for everybody. All you need to play this game is a few spoons (one less than the number of players) and two decks of cards.
Everybody sits in a circle at the table, or if there’s more of you, on the floor. The dealer shuffles the cards and each player gets four cards. The rest of the cards stay with the dealer. Set the spoons in the center of the table in a circle. The dealer then takes a card from their deck and adds it to their hand. Then they choose one card to give to the player on their left. Each player continues to do the same, and the final player needs to add their removed card to a trash pile in the center. This continues until someone scores four of a kind in their hand. Once they do, they can take a spoon. And when this happens, the other players run to take a spoon from the center as well. The player that fails to take a spoon must mark down a letter. This will be S at first, then P, and so on. The round repeats till one player loses 5 rounds until the spoon is spelled.
UNO
Uno is a classic old game that most people have played at some point in their lives. Uno is simple and great fun for the whole family.
Each player receives seven cards. The rest of the cards spin face-down and are put on the pile. Place all of the remaining cards face-down and you’ll form a draw pile. Then, take the top card from the draw pile and place it face-up nearby to begin the discard pile. The player to the dealer’s left will play first. The first player chooses the card out of hand. The card needs to match the card at the top of the pile of cards placed by number, color, or meaning. The next player takes out the card so that it matches the previous player’s card. If at some point, a player cannot play any of his cards, he must take one card from the pile. In case he has some of the wild cards in his hand, he can always use them. If after the draw of the card the player cannot play, the next player is on the move.
Special action cards make the game more interesting by reversing the direction of the game, skipping the player who plays, or demanding that the next player draws a certain number of additional cards. The winner is the player who gets all the cards out of his hand first.
In case this type of UNO is too simple for you, no worries. You can play casino card games, and you will find a lot of different types of this game to spice things up.
Thirty-One
Thirty-One or Blitz is for players of all ages, the only condition is the ability to add up the value of their cards. To win in a Thirty-One, you need to collect 3 cards of the same suit, and the sum needs to be 31, or as close as possible to 31.
The game is played clockwise, the first (player to the left of the dealer) draws a card from the top of the pile. He can keep the card and discard one of these other cards, or he can put the card in the discard pile. The next player can choose to either take the card on the top of the discard pile or draw a card. His turn ends with discarding a card.
Once a player thinks they have the best possible hand, they should knock on the table. After that, the other players then get one more turn to try to get a better score.