In the era of the high-def DVD and the ubiquitous game console, the board games unwrapped around the world on Christmas Day are a refreshing throwback. But is it all just a bit of fun or can we learn any valuable lessons from the roll of a dice?

Games are not good. Or at least that's what many people would have you believe. In English idiom, the exhortation to "stop playing games" implies manipulation, prevarication, even procrastination.

But this is a time of year when games are ascendant. Many will have played a board game over the festive period.

Monopoly is perhaps the quintessential family board game. There can't be too many people in the Western world who are completely unaware of the existence of the game.

It will have been yanked out of millions of dark cupboards over Christmas, dusted off and played. And played. And played. And played some more.

The most obvious life lesson in Monopoly is about patience. Games can last hours. Interminable circuits of the board go on as each player looks for the right roll of the dice to finally buy Bond Street and start getting some houses. It ebbs and flows as fines are paid and then recovered.

Gruelling marathons

For the parent playing Monopoly, the appeal might lie in the ability of Monopoly to swallow a whole day, to neutralise a usually fractious but now ultra competitive child.

In fact this whole vision of Monopoly as the recreational equivalent of spending the night on a mountain looking for enlightenment is a fallacy. Monopoly should really only take about an hour and a half, says retired fireman and tournament player Alan Farrell.

"The main rule that tends to get ignored is the auction. If you land on a property and don't want it, it goes to auction. That's what tends to slow things down and put a lot of people off. If you don't get houses built it will go on forever."

Of course, developing steely patience in children (and adults) is a quality with useful application in both academe and the workplace, whether it's for trawls through textbooks, three hour exams or tackling voluminous reports.

But patience is a side effect of Monopoly, and indeed of any board game. The real raison d'etre is bringing the family together. Where conversation may stutter and fail, the game marches on triumphantly forcing social interaction.

It might be bickering over whether dad's all-conquering laying down of the word "muzhiks" is allowed in Scrabble or fighting for the right to ask all the questions in Trivial Pursuits, but it all still counts as quality family time.

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