'I asked my board game-mad family which games to get this Christmas - here are their top 10 picks'

There's no denying it any longer - we're officially on the countdown to Christmas, so if (like me) you haven't got your gifts in yet, it's probably time to get on it.

I may be a little biased here, but if you're looking for a present that the whole family will enjoy this year, you can't go wrong with a classic board game. When I say I'm biased, it's because my wife and her family are absolutely crazy about board games, an enthusiasm which has now infected me - so I decided to ask them for their all-time favourites to put together a handy gift guide for ChronicleLive readers.

Have a browse through my in-laws' top 10 board game recommendations below, with a couple of card games thrown in too. I have listed the cheapest prices currently on offer at major retailers for new editions of each game - and some even have money off at the minute for Black Friday - but it's always worth checking out the likes of eBay for second-hand editions if you want to find them for less.

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Telestrations

• Number of players: 4-8
• Playing time: 30 minutes
• Recommended age: 12+

Telestrations is a fun favourite among the whole family, and I'm sure it will be making an appearance after Boxing Day dinner once again this year. A nice light option for any board game beginners, Telestrations begins with the roll of a die which instructs each player to sketch a particular word at the mercy of a sand timer.

When time is up, all players simultaneously pass their sketch on to the next player, who must guess what has been drawn. Each player writes down their guess before passing it on to the next person, who must then try to draw the word, and so on, until at the end you see if you have managed to stick to the original word or ended up with something hilariously different! You can find Telestrations on Amazon for £19.99.

Railroad Ink

• Number of players: 1-6
• Playing time: 20-30 minutes
• Recommended age: 8+

My wife snuck this into our suitcase when we went on a family holiday last year, and it quickly became another family favourite after she managed to hold everyone hostage to play it on the patio. Great for keeping everyone entertained while travelling with its compact size, Railroad Ink is the only one on this list that can also be played solo too.

The goal of Railroad Ink is to connect as many exits on your board as possible. In each round a set of dice are rolled which determine what kind of road and railway routes are available to all players. You then must draw these routes on your erasable whiteboards to create transport lines and connect your exits.

The more exits you connect, the more points you score at the end of the game - but you also lose points for each incomplete route, so plan carefully! You can find Railroad Ink at Waterstones for £22.99, and there are Rivers and Lakes expansion packs available too if you want to kick things up a notch.

The Mind

• Number of players: 2-4
• Playing time: 20 minutes
• Recommended age: 8+

This recommendation comes from my wife, to whom I can only apologise because asking her to choose just one game is basically a form of torture. If your idea of family bonding is not saying a word and squinting intensely at each other instead, The Mind is for you - and it's a lot more fun than I've just made it sound.

The Mind contains a deck of cards numbered from 1-100 - all you have to do is deal out the same number of cards as the level you're on to each player (one card each on level one, two on level two, et cetera), and you must then work together to put them down in ascending order. The tiny catch is that you can't speak or otherwise communicate with each other in any way about the cards you're holding.

When you play your lowest card and it turns out another player held a lower card, you lose one life - there are just 12 levels to beat, but we have never managed to win yet, which is exactly what makes it so fun. You can find The Mind at Waterstones for £9.99.

Articulate

• Number of players: 4-8
• Playing time: 60 minutes
• Recommended age: 12+

This one comes recommended by my sister-in-law, and is another great option for family get-togethers that is sure to come out at my in-laws' house over the festive period. The aim of Articulate is to try to get your partner to say as many words from a particular category written on the cards within the thirty-second time limit.

Categories include Person, World, Object, Action, Nature and Random. The first team to make it around the board, which contains a number of extra twists, and successfully answer a spade category (chosen from any of the above) wins the game. You can find Articulate on Amazon for £17.99.

Carcassonne

• Number of players: 2-5
• Playing time: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended age: 7+

My brother-in-law chose this one as his runner-up after I told him I couldn't really include his first choice, Terry Pratchett's Discworld Ankh-Morpork, which is no longer in print and is currently going on eBay for upwards of £180 - but I promised I would give it an honorary mention, so there you go. But if you don't quite fancy spending that much on a board game, I can vouch for Carcassonne as it's another favourite in our household too.

This tile placement game essentially involves building a map, with each player taking it in turns to draw a tile at random and being tasked with placing it adjacent to other tiles in a way that makes sense. For example, a tile might feature a city, a road, a cloister, grassland or a combination of more than one of these, and cities must be connected to cities, roads to roads, et cetera.

Having placed a tile, the player can then decide to then place one of their meeples on an area of the map to claim it, with the cities, roads or cloisters 'owned' by each player's meeples counting towards their score at the end. You can find Carcassonne on Amazon for £25.55.

Dutch Blitz

• Number of players: 2-4
• Playing time: 1-15 minutes
• Recommended age: 8+

My other brother-in-law bought us this card game, and it has come pretty much everywhere with us ever since as another great option for holidays. But beware - even if you consider yourself the least competitive person in the world, that will change after a couple of rounds of Dutch Blitz.

Each player has their own deck of 40 cards, which are numbered 1-10 in four colours. The goal is to create piles of cards in ascending order of the same colour in the middle of the table as fast as humanly possible, and the round ends as soon as a player empties their blitz pile by placing their cards in the middle.

Once you've wrapped your head around the setup of this game, I guarantee that it'll be a favourite for life. You can find Dutch Blitz on Amazon for £13.99, and there's also a Blue Expansion Pack to enable you to play with 5-8 players.

Ticket to Ride

• Number of players: 2-5
• Playing time: 30-60 minutes
• Recommended age: 8+

This recommendation comes from my sister-in-law, and I second it as one of the best board games for couples or families to have in their collection. With train cards, tiny model train pieces in different colours and a board featuring different routes, the game is an easy one to pick up: at the start of the game you will choose ticket cards to determine which routes you will pursue, and your aim is to get your train pieces to line these routes and connect the relevant cities.

To do this you must collect and play train cards which come in an assortment of random colours, with each route requiring specific numbers of certain colours - and of course you could be beaten to your destination by your fellow players at any point! There are a few editions of Ticket to Ride featuring maps of different parts of the world, but our favourite is the Europe version which you can find on Amazon for £29.03 in a Black Friday deal - it's usually a pricier £44.99.

Dixit

• Number of players: 3-8
• Playing time: 30 minutes
• Recommended age: 8+

Another recommendation from my wife, who it turns out was physically incapable of being limited to one board game, Dixit is something a little different and is sure to bring out your creative side. On each turn in Dixit one player is the storyteller, and they must choose one of the six cards in their hand, make up a sentence based on that card's image, and say it out loud without showing the card to the other players.

Each other player then selects the card in their hand that best matches the sentence and gives the selected card to the storyteller, without showing it to anyone else. The storyteller shuffles their card with all of the received cards, then reveals all of these cards - each player other than the storyteller then secretly guesses which card belongs to the storyteller.

If nobody or everybody guesses the correct card, the storyteller scores 0 points, and each other player scores 2 points. Otherwise, the storyteller and whoever found the correct answer score 3 points, and additionally the non-storyteller players score 1 point for every vote received by their card.

A highlight of Dixit is its beautiful and unusual card illustrations with expansions available too, which would work just as well as creative writing or art prompts as they do in a board game. You can find Dixit on Amazon for £21.36 in a Black Friday deal - it usually costs £29.99.

Wingspan

• Number of players: 1-5
• Playing time: 40-70 minutes
• Recommended age: 10+

This is one of my father-in-law's favourites, and is definitely one of the most beautiful games on this list with gorgeous artwork and accessories so it would make a lovely Christmas gift. You play as bird enthusiasts seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves.

Each bird - of which there are over 170 on beautifully illustrated cards - has specific powers that can be used in your habitats. These habitats focus on gaining food tokens via custom dice, laying eggs using egg miniatures, and drawing from the pile of bird cards and playing them.

The winner is the player with the most points after 4 rounds. Wingspan is the priciest game on this list, but might be worth it if you want to really elevate your board game collection - you can find the second edition on Amazon for £50.98.

Century: Golem Edition

• Number of players: 2-5
• Playing time: 30-45 minutes
• Recommended age: 8+

Saving the best till last, this is my personal favourite. Not only is it fun and easy to play on a weekend or after work, but it's a really stunning game too - from the gorgeous Golem illustrations to the multi-coloured crystals and elaborate coins that each player uses.

In Century: Golem Edition, players are caravan leaders who travel the famed golem road to deliver crystals to the far reaches of the world. Players will take it in turns to can take market cards which entitles them to specific crystals before trading or harvest their crystals, with the aim being saving up their crystals to spend on Golem cards, with each Golem card worth a different number of points.

The last round is triggered once a player has claimed their fifth Golem card, then whoever has the most victory points from their Golem collection wins. You can find Century: Golem Edition on Amazon for £32.13.