I don't know about the rest of you but I tend to Christmas shop throughout the year and hide things so I am not scrambling at the last minute.

I wanted to bring Electron Inks to your collective attention. I saw this at a science museum shop today. In essence, this company has produced a rollerball pen that writes with a conductive ink allowing circuits to be drawn and they also produce components that one may insert into the circuit.

It struck as being like snap circuits unchained - my DD loved Snap Circuits when she first had them. The look of pure astonished wonder on her face the first time we built the circuit the launches the spinner into the air is still one of my most cherished memories so far of stuff we have done together.

The possibilities are just short of endless really.

Here is the url to their website:-

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Thanks for posting, looks interesting. I wonder which kit would be best to get if you don't know if a kid will be into it or not. They end up loving things that I didn't expect them to love, and show complete disinterest in things that I think should be fascinating.

Can we make this a Christmas ideas thread? I would love ideas for my game-obsessed 7yo. He is a pretty advanced game player. We have all the obvious stuff and are looking to expand our Euro game collection, as well as looking to acquire more short but interesting card games. I'll add some of our favorites for others to consider:

Quirkle
Ticket To Ride
Munchkin
Hive
Bohnanza (note: this is DS's favorite game but I find it tedious)
Forbidden Island
Carcassone
Dungeon (kids like this, we don't)

Card games:
Gubs
Love Letter
Pit
Dutch Blitz
Spot It (can be played by 3 and up and still popular for a quick round)

Settlers of Catan and its various expansion packs (might be included in lists of "obvious stuff?)
Balderdash
Apples to apples

Cards- fluxx, multiple themed variations

interesting card games (good for stocking stuffers):
Archaeology: The Card Game
For Sale
Guillotine
The Great Dalmuti
Wizard
Timeline (various editions)
Saboteur
Mystery Rummy (we have "Jack the Ripper")
Incan Gold
Coloretto

interesting board games:

--Survive: Escape from Atlantis
--Power Grid (probably for older kids--it's not a quick game)
--The Downfall of Pompeii (made more interesting if you make sizzling noises as you throw people--actually game cubes-- into the volcano)
--Trans America (or Trans Europa)
--Dixit (for creative, artsy types)
--King of Tokyo

If you're looking to expand to "harder" games and Euros, I would recommend:

Agricola (classic farm-building worker placement game; might be a little too difficult at 7) (around 2 hours)
Between Two Cities (newly published lightweight town-building game; plays quickly) (around half an hour)
Cacao (tile laying point salad) (around 45 minutes)
Dominion (the original deck builder game) (around half to one hour)
Fresco (Place your apprentices to paint a cathedral; the most important part of every turn in choosing what time to get up in the morning. Yes, really.) (around an hour to an hour and a half)
Lanterns (abstract tile placement) (around 45 minutes)
Lords of Waterdeep (another fun worker placement game, with a D&D theme) (around an hour)
Seven Wonders (card drafting civilization building) (around an hour)
Takenoko (manage a bamboo garden for an adorable panda to eat; new expansion that I haven't played yet includes a female panda and babies) (around an hour)
Pandemic (very similar to Forbidden Island, but with a more adult theme of saving the world from disease. New legacy edition (where you physically alter the game based on past events) is super tempting.) (around an hour to an hour and a half, I think)

A little easier but still fun for adults:
Battle Sheep (abstract area control) (probably less than half an hour)
Castle Panic (defend your castle from attacking horde) (around an hour, I think)
Forbidden Desert (another cousin of Forbidden Island, but significantly harder. Cooperatively dig up parts to build a steampunk flying machine before you die in the desert.) (around two hours, maybe?)
Set (collect sets of cards that are either all the same or all different in several attributes) (around fifteen minutes)

How about non-game ideas? What's everyone doing or getting this year?

Thanks for all the great suggestions! FWIW, DS is capable of pretty much any game he's ever tried. He is a shark for games with a superlong attention span. Considerations for us include length of game (under an hour is great--we only rarely have time for epic sessions) and whether it plays well with 2 or 3 as well as 4. Art and attractiveness/appealing aesthetics matter to DD, and she'll be his typical game partner. DD is not a fan, for instance, of Munchkin.

In light of your post, ultramarina, I edited mine to add play times for each game. Some lend themselves to (i.e., demand) multiple plays in a row, of course.

We have a bunch of slightly more "meaty" games but I don't know if they are still in print, or if they are easy to find at an affordable cost (it's possible to trade on www.boardgamegeek.com though, or look in their marketplace for used copies).

El Grande
St. Petersburg
Zooloretto
Oregon
Oasis
Thebes (this is one of my favorites and DS8 was able to understand it, no problem. It is very luck-based though in terms of who wins)
Stone Age
Rumis
Flash Point
Australia
Alhambra

Ask and you shall receive!

Card games: bridge, Wizard (a trump game that is a good primer for bridge), 5 crowns

Other: mastermind

My 8 year old loves Dominion. The box says it takes 1/2 hour and up, but we've never played a game that took less than an hour.

Can someone explain Dixit to me? The cards are beautiful, but our games aren't that interesting. I'm wondering if there is a way to make that game more fun.

I'm drawn to Dixit since DD is so visual and creative, buthaving watched a Tabletop video of it, I don't think it's the right game for us yet. That's a great resource if one has the time and knows what to look at--has videos showing people playing a game through:

http://geekandsundry.com/shows/tabletop/

Based on today, I'm definitely going to pick up Coup. We like Love Letters, and it seems similar but more fun. Our favorite games are those that are not hard to learn but have intense strategy that doesn't get boring.

With Dixit, everyone has a hand full of cards with odd artwork that can have multiple interpretations, like a snowman looking out a window or a mouse chasing a cat (don't know if those are real cards, just making it up). When it's your turn, you secretly choose a card from your hand and you make up a clue about it, something that you think describes your card but isn't obvious (like you might say "Out of Place" to describe your snowman. You state your clue, and then everyone else looks at their own cards and picks one that they think best fits your clue (usually there is a good choice if the clue is vague enough, just one or a few words). Everyone gives their card to you and you shuffle them up along with yours, then line them up face-up, and everyone secretly votes on which card was yours. You get points if people guess your card, but lose points if everyone guesses it (because then your clue was too obvious). You want your clue to be obvious enough that someone gets it, but not so obvious that everyone chooses your card. Also, the people who guess your card correctly get points, and they get points if someone else chooses their card rather than yours. That's a very brief summary to give you an idea. Everyone that we have played the game with seems to enjoy it, including people who don't normally like games. It's very simple to learn. After a round or two, everyone understands what they are supposed to do. Our only problem has been that when DS was younger he would wave his cards around, basically showing everyone at the table what he had in his hand.

Citadels is another card game I thought of. It's a good game for larger groups (4 or more people). Simple to learn, interesting artwork, lots of interaction between players, etc.

It gets faster when everyone knows all the cards by heart. People often don't even wait for others to finish their turn before they start taking their own, and it can really whip around the table. But you have to play a lot of games before you get to that point.

DS11 was introduced to Go at math camp this summer, and became an instant addict. Very visual-spatial. Way less complex than chess, but supposedly much harder to strategize well.

I've thought about getting Go, but DS is already spending many hours a week playing chess and can crush all of us.