Christmas shopping. Traffic jams. Screaming kids at the mall. Angry slap fights in the aisles at Walmart. Yeah . . . gotta love it. Or not. If you're of the latter persuasion, we are kindred spirits, and I'm here to help you accomplish gift buying without killing anyone (or yourself). Here are my top 3 picks for super fun word games that make great presents and great entertainment . . .

Word Around

This one is so easy to play, it's almost ridiculously hard. All you do is read a word. The tricky part is that everyone playing is reading the same word and whoever shouts it out first wins the card. Oh yeah, did I mention the word is in a circle so that you don't know which letter is the beginning? Big fun!

Quiddler

Want to sharpen your spelling skills while increasing your vocabulary and critical thinking? This is the game for you! All you do is use all the letters in your hand of cards to form a word, leaving one card to discard. But of course there's a ticking time bomb -- the other players are trying to do the same thing before you.

Tapple
A little pandemonium is good, especially amongst family and friends. Tapple is a "Hot Potato" kind of slap a letter to guess a word without saying a repeat. Example? Say the category is candy. You might slap the letter S and shout Skittles, the person next to you slaps the K and yells Kit-Kat, the next person can't think of a darn thing and loses that round. It's pretty fast-paced and fun.

These games are all family friendly and simple to learn, so kids can play them too. Have yourself a merrier Christmas by doing some of your shopping online instead of stressing at the mall.