Christmas is just too busy when you don't have time to sit with the family and play lots of games.  Running from gathering to gathering, catching a cold, and having my parents' 50th wedding anniversary take place this past weekend all detracted from my hoped-for gaming time.  While I did get in a bit of play with my brother Tony and his boys and a few games with Gwen, I was really hoping for more with both of them and then maybe a party game or two with some of the rest of the family. 

One thing that I certainly can't complain about this Christmas, however, is the number of games that I received.  Including what I got for my 13th Anniversary with Gwen (which was on December 16), my list of new games in December looks like this:

• Ghost Stories (BBG Secret Santa)
• Say Anything (which I picked up for myself to play with family over the holidays)
• Sorry! Sliders
• Saint Petersburg
• Colosseum
• Kingsburg
• Prophecy
• Battlestar Galactica
• The shiny new version of Cosmic Encounter
• Fire & Axe, and
• Blokus 3D (which is actually still on its way)

Plus, when you add in the Wasabi! and 10 Days in Africa that I gave Gwen, my household has 13 new games to play!  I've only played a few of them so far, but I'm very excited about getting them all to the table!  So, what did I get to the table?  Here's a quick run-down...

As I'd heard from everyone else, Sorry! Sliders has been a pretty big hit.  It fell a little flat for me with just 2 players, but with 4 it is a blast.  I got in 4 games with Tony and Alex, and then another 4 last night at Boardgame night.  Personally, I like the variant where you link all 4 player boards together to make one really long sliding path, because it starts to actually begin requiring skill and practice to do well (rather than the regular game, which is a lot quicker but seems to only promote chaotic fun).

I also got in three plays of one of Tony's new Christmas acquisitions, Lord of the Rings - The Confrontation: Deluxe Edition, whose name is far too long but which made for a really fun challenge.  We played the recommended 2 games with the regular characters, with us switching sides between plays to make it all fair.  While the fellowship won both times, I won the series because I had one or two more characters survive in my loss.  We then played one extra game with the alternative characters, which I won as the shadow player by getting the Witch King into the Shire.  I've never actually played Stratego, so I can't comment on that frequent comparison, but overall I was very impressed by the asymmetric balance that the game acheives.  It's obviously a very abstract game in how it plays, but all the units' special powers are pretty well-grounded in the Tolkien literature.  I've had this on my wishlist for a long time, and after actually seeing it in person, it's going to stay there.  My only concern about buying it is that I don't know if Gwen would like it and 2-player games rarely see play for me with anyone else.

Gwen and I got in three plays of 10 Days in Africa in addition to our session with Wasabi!.  I had heard good things about it compared to the others in the series, but I wasn't really impressed.  For some reason, I had the mistaken idea that it included railroads (as does 10 Days in Asia), but instead it was pretty much exactly like 10 Days in the USA (except for the actualy geography, of course).  If anything, it felt somehow "smaller" than the other two games I've played in the series.  We'll play it some just for variety, but I'd definitely rather play 10 Days in Asia to get a better play experience.

I really wanted to try out Say Anything or Backseat Drawing (which I gave to one of my nieces) at one of our family gatherings, but it just never seemed to work out.  We played Dirty Santa as the gift-giving game at two of our Christmas parties, and my brother-in-law Kevin and his cousin Rebecca continued their gift-wrapping war this year as well (which are both very game like).  Since I gave a history of this giftwrap phenomenon last year, let me just update you now. 

Kevin did an okay job, creating a simple scavenger hunt that started with Rebecca having to cut open a PVC pipe with a hacksaw.  But Rebecca really hit one out of the park, giving Kevin a bag of 100+ walnuts which he had to crack open.  Why, you may ask, did he have to crack open a ton of walnuts?  Because she and her dad had previously cracked open most of them and replaced the nuts with scrabble pieces (which were the important things) and other assorted objects (to keep him honest with having to open all of them and not just the ones that rattled), then gluing them all back together so that you could hardly tell the difference.  After 20 minutes of cracking, Kevin then had to then unscramble the letters to discover his present's hiding place (which required significant help from his girlfriend).  Lots of fun, but Kevin definitely needs to step it up next year! 

At the two Boardgame nights surrounding Christmas, I played a few other games as well.  Most of the December 23 one was consumed with a play of Android.  In 3 hours, we only got through the first half of the game, which I actually "won" (if you can count incomplete games as wins).  I liked a lot of what I saw in the game, especially the overall theme, attention to plot and story, and some of the rather unique mechanics (especially the conspiracy puzzle).  Unfortunately, we were all learning the game, and downtime was a huge problem.  Feeling the time pressure of it being on game night didn't help any, and I'd really like to try this out when we'd be able to take our time and explore all the narative that just drips from this really beautiful game.

Last night, Chris Ingersoll and I played a game of Prophecy as well, which I think will end up being a very solid game.  It took us a while to figure out some of the symbology on the board, and a few card misprints threw us off a couple of times, but overall we both had a really good time.  I can't wait to try this out a second time, especially with more players.

But the biggest hit for me so far over Christmas has to be Ghost Stories.  I've already written about my experience with the solo game, and I've gotten in a couple more multiplayer plays at game night over the last few weeks as well.  It's incredibly hard (which has turned a person or two off) and a bit more random than other coops (which has irritated Chris a bit), but I just love it.  While it still doesn't quite knock off Pandemic as my favorite cooperative game, it may give ShadowsOver Camelot a run for its money as my second-favorite.

Well, after writing all this, maybe my holiday gaming wasn't as bad as I'd thought.  Still, there's always more games that we could have played!