Faces lit by the glow of candles and fairy lights, children up past their bedtime. Everyone having too much fun to go home, so open another bottle and let the evening linger. Here are some of our favourite kitchen-table games to keep the laughter flowing into the night.

How in sync are you? On the count of three, you and a partner say a random word at the same time. Your aim is to get closer and closer together in meaning, until you land on the same word. Each time, count to three, then say your next word together.

This is where you hide an imaginary thimble. Pick a place people will be able to guess – in the real world or a fictional one – it can be anywhere you can imagine. Together, the table has to guess where it could be, using only yes-or-no questions.

Everyone writes down three things on scraps of paper. They can be anything: a celebrity, a film, a place, for example. Fold up the pieces of paper and put them all in a hat. In round one, each person picks one out a piece of paper, describes what is on it until it’s guessed, then you put them all back. For round two you do the same, but you have to act the thing out, like a charade. For round three, you only use sound effects.

One of you gets chosen to be the ‘art collector’. The collector picks something for the rest of the group to draw, and they have just five seconds to draw it. Each artist then tries to convince the collector why their picture is the best and tries to sell it to them. The winning artist becomes the collector in the next round.

Each player writes a name on a Post-it and sticks it to the forehead of the person next to them. Without knowing who they are, they have to guess asking only yes-or-no questions until they get it right. E.g. ‘Am I a man?’, ‘Am I a famous actor?’ ‘Am I a singer?'.