My brothers and I could be described as gamers. Our parents could not.

My brothers and I will smash each other at Wallenstein, Blood Bowl Team Manager and Mario Kart: Double Dash (which is obviously the best Mario Kart). My parents will coach Rugby, play Rummy competitively, lose hours to Freecell, heckle like the best of them during a game of Charades. If I take out a contemporary board game they’ll raise an eyebrow and leave us to it. They’re not gamers. But they can be.

Secret Santa is a card game about proving to friends and family that you’re a better person than they are. It’s the product of over a decade of house-ruling traditional card games and trick-taking games with my extended family every Christmas. Every element of the game is designed to get gamers playing with their families.

At its core Secret Santa is a classic trick-taking game – some cards trump others, but you have to play a matching set. Layered on top of this base are a series of special cards, which provide you with a variety of strategic possibilities. Holly cards can be played as an interrupt between other player’s turns, Star cards are added to cards played from your hand, and Snowflake cards affect the conditions of the upcoming round.

Each special card is designed to have an applicable purpose regardless of the level of your competitiveness. Santa is the best at gift-giving, so he just wins a hand. The Christmas Tree allows you to seed other players’ hands with cards they may not want late in the game, or to potentially steal a powerful card for yourself. Carol seems weak at first, allowing you to swap seats with another player, until you realize the competitive advantage of sitting to the left of the player who keeps winning rounds. Their ability to generate an advantage is teachable, and generate fun, obvious. They’re also designed to work completely independently of one another, allowing you to ease new players into the game by introducing them slowly, or to customize your deck to suit your family’s play-style.

And this is all before you get to illustrator Lauren Dawson’s crucial contribution to the game. Lauren’s illustrations feature some of the most expressive characters I’ve seen in a game, blending a classic style with a mid-90s Nickelodeon sensibility (the leaping lords are a particular favourite). It’s timeless without being old-fashioned. It’s beautiful.

Secret Santa is my ideal Christmas family game. It’s easy to talk your Uncle into playing because it’s familiar, but unique enough from a standard card game to intrigue. The theme is Grandmother-approved, but with bite: uninvited guests, festive ghosts, and some uncomfortable-looking Geese. The game itself is strategic enough to pull in your gamer siblings, while being plain fun enough for your younger cousins. It’s what Christmas, and card games, are all about – bringing people together to lovingly wind each other up. My brothers and I are looking forward to playing it with our parents.

Secret Santa Krampus Promo Card Krampus is a Holly card, which can only be played after another player’s turn. Krampus steals you all away to the South Pole! Play immediately goes counter-clockwise rather than clockwise. Any rules which refer to the player’s left now switch to their right, and vice-versa. Play remains this way until the game ends.