Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
It’s The Best Time of the Year
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Jack Frost nipping at your nose. And Christmas marketing nipping at your wallet. It’s that time of year when the holiday spirit (and, let’s be honest, the holiday commercialization) spreads across every surface like spilled eggnog. Personally, I embrace it. By early November, my radio is locked to SiriusXM’s Holiday Traditions (big fan of big bands), and my decorations are ready to make their annual migration out of storage. The season marks the closing of the year and the opening of our homes to friends, family, and questionable amounts of sweets.
Holiday gatherings also mean board games. While that alone brings joy, it’s surprising how few titles truly embrace Christmas beyond a simple reskin. Sure, Patchwork, Boop, and Fluxx have donned their holiday sweaters, and deeper cuts like Santa’s Workshop or the Dice Throne: Santa vs. Krampus duel exist. But venture further, and you’ll find a landscape about as untouched as a fresh snowfall.
This year at Geekway to the West, I previewed Holiday Hills, a passion project from Chris Porter of Chris Couch Games. The game’s table presence alone is a showstopper—3D trees, sleighs, and a cheerful palette of wooden ornaments that practically sing carols.
But it raises a few questions: Does a seasonal theme cap a game’s appeal? Can a Christmas game still be a hobby game? Can it work year-round?
Well, much like on Christmas morning, we’ll unwrap those answers together.
Deck the Halls
Holiday Hills is a family-friendly pick-up-and-deliver game that mixes area control, dice rolling, and objective scoring into one festive package. As agents of the Tinseltown Taskforce, Major Holly Daze has ordered us to decorate the town square to maximum merriment.
Turns progress as players guide their sleighs around an action track. As you glide over symbols on the track, you collect colored dice, which you then roll and tuck beneath various trees. Sleighs can hold only two dice at a time, so timing your pickups matters.
Action spaces allow you to place ornaments on a tree’s four branches, fulfilling objectives and competing for majority control. Trees can be rotated to line up your ornaments with your goals, at least until someone installs string lights. These long ornaments connect two trees, lock them in place, and instantly raise the aesthetic stakes.
Players can rush or meander through the track, but everyone must stop at cottages. After all, the Tinseltown Taskforce is knocking on doors soliciting Christmas decoration donations. These stops let you unload dice and draw new objectives.
Once all players return to their home cottages, Mayor Holly Daze evaluates the town’s holiday glam. Points come from:
- Festive trees (all ornament spots filled)
- Full trees (all dice slots beneath filled)
- Area majority, where the player with the most ornaments on a tree scores the highest die beneath it, and second place scores the next highest
- Objective cards, which reward specific ornament or dice patterns, with partial points, even if you only manage some of the layout
Christmas has been saved as players admire the collective beauty of their decorating skills!
Spirit of the Season
Holiday Hills is a holly jolly good time. It’s approachable enough for non-gamers but layered enough to keep hobbyists engaged. Early on, the board feels wide open—“I’ll put this ornament somewhere, I guess?”—but by the time you’re holding your sixth objective card, that wide-open space tightens into a strategic puzzle. Suddenly, the perfect spot is gone, your dreams of optimal ornament placement evaporate, and you’re settling for partial points.
A clever dynamic emerges: helping other players without meaning to. You chase your own goals, but your placements might complete someone else’s tree or hand them a majority. Sometimes the smartest move is placing an ornament you don’t even need just to snag a few tasty second-place points.
Pacing also shines. You could sprint to the end, but doing so forfeits plenty of opportunities. Yet finishing first or second grants a chunky reward of points. The tension feels like timing your last-minute shopping—rush too early, and you miss gifts; wait too long, and the good stuff’s gone.
One of the biggest delights is the Santa’s velvet bag of customization. The “nice” mode is gentle and family-friendly, while the “naughty” mode lets players swap ornaments and snatch majorities faster than Dasher and Dancer in flight. The Skill Tree (great pun) mini-expansion gives ongoing powers as you complete festive or full trees. Modular action tiles add complexity or shorten the game to meet your group’s vibe.
What impressed me most wasn’t just the production quality, but the depth hiding beneath the jingle bells. The modularity means the game adapts to ages, skill levels, and player personalities. Multiple strategies feel viable, and end scores tend to stay competitive.
So, does seasonal theming limit it? Not here. Holiday Hills is a good game first and a Christmas game second. There’s enough replayability to pull it out any time of year, even when it’s blazing hot outside. The holiday charm just makes it sweeter.
My one tiny gripe: with 3D trees, ornaments, and dice, a careless hand swipe can turn the town square a mess of treeless ornaments.
But if you want to wow your family with a charming, table-filling, grandma-approved game, add this to your holiday wish list. And if you’re good, maybe Santa will tuck it under the tree for you.
