Board Games: Cozy Holiday Game Nights
Hanging out with friends and/or family for the holidays? Here’s a few cozy board games to play over the break!
Christmas has come and gone this year but New Years is still around the corner. Maybe you’re just looking for some chill board games to play as we head into 2025. Or maybe you’re just looking for some suggestions for your next board game night. Well, I got sent a care package from Asmodee and it’s got all the makings of a perfect board game night.
This not-so little bag of fun had six different games, coffee, cocoa mix, a token silo, and even some fun pins included.
Coffee and hot coco? Now that’s a recipe for cozy game nights!
Cozy Board Games
But I wanted to talk mostly about the games. It’s a pretty good spread of some classics as well as some family friend games if you’ve got little ones who want in on the action.
Just One is a word association game for 3-7 players. It’s kid friendly and easy to learn. This one is perfect for “non-gamers” and more of a party game environment. Spot It! is another classic that’s super kid friendly as well. It’s a simple matching game where you’re just looking to “spot” matching cartoonish images.
Next up we have Ticket to Ride and Splendor. Again, both of these are classics but for good reasons. There’s more versions of Ticket To Ride than I can keep up with at this point — and that’s not a bad thing! The goal is to collect matching train cards and then claim various railway routes across (in this version) North America. It’s easy to learn and it’s a good gateway game for non-gamers, too.
Splendor was probably my favorite board game for an entire summer back in 2018. It’s an engine builder card game. The goal is to produce gems and essentially “trade-up” with your engine. You’re trying to accumulate prestige points and the player with the most at the end of the game wins. Games can be pretty quick and I like Splendor because it can be strategic but still approachable by non-gamers. It’s another great gateway game and perfect for cozy game night!
Azul and Harmonies are next up. If you’ve never played Azul, it’s a neat tile placement game. The components are enticing and when it was released it was a big hit. So I can see why this one was included in this cozy care package.
Harmonies is now my new favorite board game. It was released back in April of 2024 but I hadn’t played it until PAX U earlier this month. The art is great, the components are nice, and the gameplay is simple yet engaging. The idea is you’re building habitats for various animals. You’ve got to place tiles on your board in the exact pattern in order to place animals in their habitats. You also get points for how you place your tiles, too.
The Other Goodies
While this care package arrived in a box, inside the box was a bag — this allplay Board Game Bag. If you’re not familiar with them, they are high quality game bags that you can use to transport your board games around. They fit all those awkward shaped board game boxes and the extras you might need. Plus the bags are padded to protect your games and they cleverly added the straps to really support the bag. This is actually my second one and I’ve had the first one for years. I use it to carry 45+ lbs. / 20 kg of card games (ie, my Arkham Horror: The Card Game collection). These bags are fantastic.
There’s also the Gamegenic Token Silo. I actually have three of these already and this red one makes four. Two of them I use for my Marvel: Crisis Protocol Tokens and the third is in my Arkham Horror: TCG bag for all those tokens. I haven’t decided what to do with this one just yet but I know I’ll find a use for it. I might just keep it with this board game bag to take with whatever games I’m toting. It will get lots of use that way.
I hope your holidays are going well wherever you are. I can definitely say that all of these games are worth checking out. They will make for a good cozy board game night over the holidays. Just don’t forget that hot coco!
If you’ve got any cozy board game recommendations drop them in the comments! I’m always looking for more games to check out.
