Setup

Place the sleigh tile in the center of the table. Deal everybody 4 tiles to take into their hand. Shuffle the remaining tiles and place them facedown within everyone’s reach; this is the draw pile.

Objective

In this game you deliver presents to houses. The game ends when …

• You’ve managed to score all houses (in the deck)!
• Or it’s impossible to do so (most likely because everyone is out of tiles).

Sum the stars on the houses you scored: that’s your final score.

If you scored all houses, you’ve beat the game and have proven yourself worthy Santa Clauses!

Gameplay

Take clockwise turns until done. On your turn, take one action: PLAY or SLEIGH.

The rules below always hold.

• You’re never allowed to split the board. Everything must stay connected at all times.
• Discuss and strategize, sure, but never show or communicate your exact cards.
• A question mark is a wildcard. It represents any value you want.

After your turn, always draw back up to 4 tiles. If you can’t do anything (which is quite rare), just draw 1 tile and your turn is over.

Play

Play a tile from your hand. It must be next to an existing tile.

Numbers in rows/columns must always be either ascending or descending.

If this already isn’t true for a sequence (which the expansions can cause), you can’t add a tile to that sequence.

Sleigh

Move the sleigh in a straight line to somewhere else. (That is, the destination is on the same row or column.)

You can place it on a tile or in an empty space (adjacent to a tile).

All tiles you pass along the way, including the one on which you landed, are removed.

If you ended on a house, and the tiles you removed satisfy the wishes of that house (at least), you score it! Place the house on your score pile.

That’s it! Have fun.

Upgrades

Try any of the variants to make the base game fit better with your specific player group. And once you have a few games under your belt, add an expansion to spice it up!

Variants

Want a shorter/easier game? Pick one or multiple of the changes below.

• Include fewer houses. For each house left out, though, also remove a random other tile from the deck.
• Start with the lowest value building (just wants 1 present of any type) next to the sleigh. This immediately gives you something to aim for and something to score.
• (Optional) Use two sleighs.

Want a harder game? Don’t allow the sleigh to land on empty spots (outside of the board). It can only land on existing tiles (removing those too, as usual).

Want to play solo?

• You get 7 tiles in your hand.
• After each turn, draw 2 tiles from the deck. For each, decide whether to play or discard it.
• (@TODO:Insert special “solo” tiles showing a sleigh/reindeer? When they appear, you must take that action next turn.)

Reindeer way

This expansion adds Reindeer tiles.

This allows a third possible action to do on your turn: Reindeer Way.

Discard a tile from your hand (to pay for this action).

Then,

• Pick an existing tile next to a group of reindeer. (At least two connected reindeer tiles.)
• Move this tile to a new destination adjacent to this group.
• If this destination already contains a tile, swap them.

When moving a tile this way, you don’t have to follow the placement rules from the PLAY action (ascending / descending number)!

It also adds double presents: cards that show two types. When delivering, you pick the one type it represents. (It’s not both types at once.)

Finally, it adds new houses (that wish for a reindeer, somehow).

Tough Trees

This expansion adds the Christmas Tree tile.

• It is not removed when doing the sleigh action. (Unless it’s part of a house’s wishes.)
• It can not move using reindeers.
• When placed, you draw 2 tiles at the end of your turn (instead of 1). This permanently raises your hand limit by 1. These tiles may be taken either from the table or the deck.

It adds tiles with double numbers. For such a tile, pretend it has both those numbers (and all in-between). Yes, this makes placement much harder.

It also adds optional tiles with special actions written on them. (You can leave them out if you want a textless game.) The action is executed immediately after placing the tile.

Finally, it adds new houses (that wish for a tree).