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.