The classic Christmas games and toys that still rule Yule

Check out the iconic games and toys that rock every Christmas and have the power to make or break relationships

Lego winter house ready for Christmas. 

Well, at least on the Christmas card — it’s not about the money spent or the perceived prestige branding of a gift. This is a season of togetherness and fun. That festive recipe doesn’t have to be pricey, and some of the great names in games and toys still lifting smiles have lasted over a century.

Twister, which is still a highly popular method to send the parents flat on their trifled stained faces on Christmas Day, cleverly uses the players’ bodies as the moving pieces of the game. It has a delightful, awkward, retro romp to it, and was brought to the shelves in 1966 by Reyn Guyer Jnr and industrial designer Neil Raben in Minneapolis. The game was launched on the US Tonight Show with a tangle of the purring Eva Gabor and a blushing host — Johnny Carson — possibly the best small-screen marketing spin ever. I only wish they had kept the original, naughty name of “Kings Footsie” — which sounds like something from a mid-century key party.

Twister is a great choice for your homebound family bubble to throw out adult backs, test failing elasticity, and please God, to induce some legendary passing of wind. €16.99 today, multiple outlets.

Danish Lego (“leg godt”, meaning “play well”) has quality, ABS plastic buttons and tubes so perfectly preserved to a 1958 patent, that 80 years later it still snaps together — be it new or vintage. 

Created by Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891-1958) Lego can be endlessly torn down and re-imagined, is universally compatible with itself, and can last for generations of children of all abilities.

Lego blocks remain the tip-top choice in intelligent, systematised toys, and are the most commercially successful of its type. New sets are insanely expensive — don’t throw good Lego out — gift it onto the charity circuit after lockdown, please.

The Lego Classic Large Creative Brick Box has 790 pieces in 33 different colours, two— base-plates for open-ended creativity, a storage box and a pamphlet of building ideas, €44.99, all good toy shops.

Construction toys are blessedly gender-free, creative choices, and the grandest building set of them all (and certainly the oldest after wooden blocks), is Meccano (Mechanics Made Easy), which dates back to 1898.

Having been chased down the stairs with a lashing spanner for extending trembling infant fingers towards my brother’s building site — I’m rather tempted today. It was invented by the visionary Frank Hornby (1863 -1936) of clockwork toys and Dinky cars, on a loan of £5. 

By 1916, Meccano had its own factory and its own magazine detailing the millions of things you could do with the metal strips, wheels, axles, nuts, bolts and gears. Cultivating engineering skills, try the Meccano Super Construction 25-in-1 

Building Set with over 600 pieces and a 6V motor to make a helicopter, a buggy crane, a broadcasting vehicle or whatever they can dream up (10+). €65, Smyths Toys.

Monopoly. 

Eighty-five years old (in the British editions), few board games demolish good behaviour like the lengthy, complex playtime of Monopoly. Invented by Maryland woman, Lizzie Magie, the daughter of an abolitionist who was on the road with Abraham Lincoln, The Landlord’s Game was developed as a teaching tool on a progressive economic theory and taxation ideas of monopoly/prosperity (Georgism).

It was taken up by Charles Darrow a heater salesman in 1933 as Monopoly. The metal dye cast tokens were inspired by the dangles on Darrow’s niece’s charm bracelets. 

It was launched in England by Hasbro in 1935, and the original buildings on the board were scouted from iconic London addresses by Victor Watson, the managing director of Waddingtons.

Diminutive, sweet grandmothers transform to rent-wracking landlords. Dimpled ten-year-olds plot and scheme to ruin their adoring father’s carefully assembled portfolio. It’s financial warfare.

The House Rules, remain a particular point of contention leading to historic, steaming huffs — the delight of the surviving investors. A must-have acquisition, Classic Irish Edition, €21 (often on offer for less) and I’m informed there’s a Sore Loser edition for the Donald Trumps in your life, suppliers nationwide.

Play-Doh (Hasboro) is one of the few perishable toys on offer. I don’t have a problem with Play-Doh, in fact, I would say its soul stroking yield, and sensory delight is irresistible. 

We’ve all elbowed a toddler aside to extrude a 'do from a Play-doh hairstyling press.

Squidge & Squish accessories, squidgeandsquish.co.uk

The dough was first developed as a putty for cleaning wallpaper of soot stains in the 1920s by Cleo McVicker for the Cincinnati, Ohio-based Kutol Products Soap Company. 

In 1956 it was relaunched as Play-Doh, a malleable, play-clay and distributed to Cincinnati schools. The rest is history. Still, this largely non-toxic dough comes with a hail of plastic pieces that rarely last the course of a childhood.

Buy the more Earth-friendly Squidge & Squish clay and accessorising online (squidgeandsquish.co.uk) or explore making your own dough free of surfactants and preservatives, made up of from flour, salt and water (it will absorb bacteria and dirt and is not a long-liver).

Get the little ones in an uproar with a super-simple make-your-own recipes here: 

www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/playdough-recipe

 

Happy Christmas!