If you enjoy word games, like Scrabble, but don’t like waiting for your turn (sometimes it can be a long wait in a Scrabble game), then let me suggest:

Bananagrams

Bananagrams is played by distributing a number of the letter tiles to each of the players. The game begins and each player works to make a crossword of all thier tiles. Once a player has used all his/her tiles, they then call “peel” and everyone takes another tile. When all the tiles in the pool are gone, the person with a complete crossword calls “bananas” and wins the round.

This is a great game. I wasn’t quite sure when we picked it up if it would live up to all the praise and awards that it has garnered, but it does. It’s fast, but not so fast that you’d have no hope of including the grandparents in a game (my mum has a short fuse with games that don’t give her even a moment to think, like Uno).

Strategy: The key is to work fast, use all your letters in words as quickly as you can. Once you get to the ‘peel’ stage, you just keep at it and your opponents will build up a set of tiles while you deplete the pool. As far as quickness goes: pan and scan your tiles, make lots of places that you can easily build on to your crossword instead of just a couple of branches, know your 2-letter words, place lots of two-letter words around to use as builders for future words and rearranging.

Anyway, to sum up, this is a great stocking stuffer. How many games fit comfortably in a stocking? It is also, currently, the #1 game on Amazon.com, so somebody else thinks its great besides me.

Merry Christmas!