A FEW YEARS back, after the Thanksgiving table was cleared and the dishes were washed and the Patriots had won, there was still quite a lot of beer in the fridge. My family needed something to do. A game, perhaps? Huddling with my home-from-college sister, we hatched a plan: ASSHOLE! All we needed were a worn-edged deck of playing cards and the plentiful remnants of the Miller Lite suitcase, courtesy of my aunt’s chaw-chewin’ cowboy boyfriend. The plan was breathtaking in its simplicity. Why the hell not? So after some convincing, my nonplussed suburban parents sat down for their first round of drinking games since the Nixon administration. As seven of us got to dealing, I was surprised by how quickly the older folks took to the game — especially by the vigor with which my father boomed, "DRINK, asshole!"

I drank. And so it continued for some time, all of us increasingly lubricated with the holiday spirit, periodically shuffling musical-chairs-style around the kitchen table, and swearing heartily at each other according to our rank on the political totem pole. But I think Nana, who’s a little too fragile to pound beers and so was sitting alone in the other room, misunderstood. She had no idea we were playing a game. All she heard was us getting increasingly drunk and hurling foul-mouthed invective at each other.

"Joanie," she said with trembling concern, when my aunt checked in on her. "Please tell them not to have so much beer."

We should never have exposed Nana to such foul-mouthed familial inebriation. But things will be much better this Christmas, when we stay sober and stick with some of these innocuous board games.

THIS YEAR’S big-ticket item is without a doubt the Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary Edition ($29.99). It’s hard to believe it’s been two decades since those little plastic wedges and obscure questions revolutionized board gaming, but it’s true. (It’s even harder to believe that this year will also see holiday purchases of revamped Cabbage Patch Kids, Care Bears, and He-Man action figures, but that’s a different issue altogether.) Hasbro has overhauled the old girl and put out a special game commemorating the excruciating minutiae of the last 20 years. All your favorite cultural hiccups from the ’80s (Pac Man, Michael Milken), the ’90s (Fabio, Darva Conger), and beyond (the "I Love You" virus, Olestra) are here! There are 3600 questions in all, and a lot of ’em are doozies. Who knew that in Australia, Life Savers candies come in "musk" flavor? Were you aware that the average Japanese 11-year-old was six inches taller in 2001 than in 1950?

This version includes one oddity: a single question somewhere in those 600 cards was thunk up by an unnamed winner of the "Be a Question in the Trivial Pursuit Game" contest. "It was selected from hundreds of entries that people submitted about their own lives," we’re told. How one is expected to answer a question based on the personal arcana of John Q. Boardgame in Anywhere, USA, is beyond us. Otherwise, things are pretty much the same as they were back when Luke and Laura got hitched: same tiny plastic pies to fill up with tiny plastic wedges, same round fold-out board. But this time, there is one exciting addition: a "Special Anniversary Deluxe Card Dispenser." Buy now!

Continuing in the pop-cultural vein, the People Magazine Board Game ($29.99) plays like an amalgam of charades, Pictionary, and The $25,000 Pyramid. The basic gist — governed by a host of rules that are oddly Byzantine for a game based on such a brainless magazine — is to convey to a teammate which celeb’s name is on the card in your hand (without, of course, uttering the person’s name). This gives you license to behave just as badly as all your favorite Tinseltown types.

"Have you ever had a brush with fame? If you have the best story, you go first." If you’re that lucky person, draw a card, and get set to cajole that dumb-as-a-post second cousin into guessing the name of said star. Say, for instance, that your designated Hollywood hack is Jack Nicholson. You could either impersonate him ("You can’t handle the truth!"), do some sort of charade (imagine how cute junior will look holding back his hair, donning dark glasses, and grinning maniacally), utter words or phrases that might identify him ("Lakers games ..."; "Beaten to death in Easy Rider"), or, if all else fails, draw a picture of him. Eventually, with enough right answers, your team may be the first to fill up a scoring pocket with 25 mini cardboard People magazines.

More than 1000 notable personalities are represented here. Examples of people the game’s makers consider notable: Muhammad Ali, Paul McCartney, Alfred Hitchcock. Others: Tammy Faye Bakker, Maury Povich, Kenny G. We’re sure Pablo Picasso would be honored to see his name on the same card as Nancy McKeon from The Facts of Life. "People magazine remains true to the editorial concept it was founded upon in 1974: nothing fascinates people more than other people," read the game’s instructions. "Especially celebrities." Give credence to People’s assessment of Americans as shallow, fame-obsessed dolts. Buy this game.

Reminding prospective players that "we’ve all done things we’re not proud of," Loser ($19.99) bills itself as "a board game for people who aren’t afraid to laugh at their mistakes. And their friends." It was developed by two PhD scientists (no joke) in California who claim it’s "perfect for dinner parties or reunion weekends with college pals."

First things first: "Unpack the game board," the instructions read. "Unfold it." (Let’s just say right off that if you need these directions, you should win this game handily.) After the board is unfolded, players move their plastic pieces around it according to how they answer questions designed to determine their "loser quotient." Some examples of how this might be done:

"If you have hemorrhoid cream in your medicine cabinet, take the penalty."

"If you’ve ever thrown up in public, take the penalty."

"Whoever has the most keys on their key chain takes the penalty."

Loser is available in select toy stores and online at www.losergame.com (where you can also contribute suggestions for questions in future Loser editions).

What would you do if you needed water while lost in the jungle? How would you recognize the symptoms of cat-scratch fever? The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Game ($24.99) rewards or punishes you based on your instincts for self-preservation. The popular books the game is based upon, of course, are interesting reads — even if you’ll never (fingers crossed) have to use the information they impart. And in some versions, they pack some great laughs, as when the golf edition instructs readers on how to finish a round with a broken arm, or the "dating and sex" survival guide tells what to do when your date is drunk, or his/her gender is uncertain. But this game seems to have lost a little of that sense of fun, focusing as it does primarily on questions of survival (how to treat a wilderness heart attack, how to avoid schistosomiasis worms when traveling abroad, how to prepare for a plane crash over water) that can sometimes makes for a surprisingly solemn gaming experience.

Play progresses in a pretty straightforward manner. Get the multiple-choice question right, and you move ahead on the game board. Get it wrong and your opponent does. The first to cross the finish line is the victor. But think hard; many of the answers, like the one that says not to worry about whether to inhale through the mouth or the nose when plummeting earthward with a broken parachute because "you’ll breathe through your skin," were news to us. Others are amusingly enigmatic. How to keep from drowning while ice fishing? "Carry a long, knotted rope with a weight on the end and hang ice spikes around your neck."

Be forewarned that the makers of this game, though they want you to have a blast playing it in the safety of your living room, by no means want you to take its lessons to heart when you’re dangling precariously from a cliff. In a Jackass-style disclaimer, the instructions practically scream: "DO NOT ATTEMPT TO UNDERTAKE ANY OF THE ACTIVITIES DESCRIBED IN THIS GAME YOURSELF.... [W]e do not guarantee that the information contained herein is complete, safe, or accurate, nor should it be considered a substitute for your good judgment and common sense."

But you’d never actually substitute a board game’s wisdom for your own acumen, would you? If so, maybe you deserve those schistosomiasis worms after all.

Another game you’ll want is Simpsons Chess ($29.99). With all these flashy, dumbing-down, pop-culture-obsessed games flooding the market, it’s not a bad idea, perhaps, to get back to basics. For a working-class version of the game of kings, you can’t beat Springfield’s yellow-trash family. Here, they’re all gussied up: Homer as the king and Marge as the queen, Krusty as the bishop (the best Jewish bishop since Joey), Bart as the knight, Lisa as the rook, and little Maggie as the pawn.

The current issue of the Atlantic Monthly includes a long piece profiling legendary chess wunderkind and certifiable head case Bobby Fischer, who, in his epochal matches with Boris Spassky, was incessantly bitching about niggling details like the glare from the chess board. Maybe a fun set like this would’ve helped him lighten up? Maybe he wouldn’t be such a nut? Alas, it’s too late to tell.

Simpsons obsessives might also want to check out any one of the ever-proliferating merchandising tie-ins. The Simpsons Trivia Game Tin ($14.99) is a metal box chock full of brain-twisters even the most religious viewers will find challenging. Monopoly: The Simpsons Edition ($34.99) lets players guide their pewter figurines around Springfield’s famous landmarks, along the way getting richer than Mr. Burns. The Simpsons Loser Takes All ($14.99) is a game of chance and of skill (can you flip my eyelids up?). Simpsons Clue ($19.99) offers a starring role in the biggest mystery to hit Springfield since Mr. Burns was shot. Of course, no household would be complete without Simpsons Dominoes ($10.99). And The Simpsons Pictionary ($34.99) also looks to be a big draw.

Mike Miliard can be reached at mmiliard[a]phx.com