According to BBC News, playing games is a good idea!  While the article focuses mainly on Monopoly (which should be expected from a mass-media outlet, I suppose), they also mentioned Diplomacy pretty heavily.  The main thrust of the article was talking about the social interaction and negotiation skills that these games develop, but the other benefits of gaming were implied a bit as well.  

I just thought that it was pretty cool that such a huge news source was telling people to play games over the holidays! 

So go play board games!