Carcassonne

So my aunt and uncle came by two days ago, and one of their gifts to my family (my family is far too large to buy individual gifts for, we know that) was a boardgame called Carcassonne, based on some town in southern France or somesuch nonsense. However, the game was actually really fun! Players take turns placing terrain tiles and basically growing the map, while simultaneously placing "followers" which can be monks (in the cloisters), thieves (on the roads), knights (in the castles), or farmers (in, believe it or not, the fields). Thus, your job is to to try to get the most profit from the constantly growing and evolving map, with a very limited number of followers to play. It was really quite stimulating. I was happy because I invested a lot of time and effort into my farmers (in the game I played with my aunt, uncle, and brother) which don't get counted until the end of the game. When the end of the game finally came, my farmers got counted and shot me from dead last to tied for second, three points behind the lead. Fun game, fun game.
Happy New Year!