There's nothing much more heart warming than an afternoon spent playing board games with loved ones. Be they family or friends, there's a sweetness to the simplicity of then that boosts mood and spirits alike. And, during the festive season, when watching watching Love, Actually for the fourth time has left you feeling brain dead and your extended family are testing your nerves, board games are a quiet and refreshingly straightforward activity.
But simple doesn't have to mean boring, as the modern game landscape has been flooded with aesthetically pleasing sets and suites that are designed to be a feature of the home. Fashion houses, from Aerin to Brunello Cucinelli, have kissed goodbye to the raggedy, cardboard packaging of the past and welcomed a new dawn of games in chic materials.
Whilst board games with overly complex rules and multi-day ‘campaigns’ have ruled the market for decades (yes, we are looking at you Dungeons and Dragons, which has seen a 600% increase in interest since the first series of Stranger Things aired), we are lusting after simple games that don't need instructions of epic proportions to explain. What was so wrong with noughts and crosses anyway?
From dominoes to tic-tac-toe, we've rounded up the 20 best board games that will inject a stylish dose of fun into any home and will make for the perfect Christmas present.
