The games we play: Games make great gifts for families - here are some ideas, from the old standbys to new favorites

Monopoly, the world's best-selling board game, celebrates its 80th birthday in 2015, and "The Polar Express," the Caldecott-winning classic children's Christmas book, turns 30 this year.

There are nearly 50 versions of Monopoly, and merchandise that followed in the wake of the 2004 "Polar Express" film could fill, well, several big-screen-sized box cars -- including apparel, video and board games, puzzles and more.

Daniel Seiler, community business development manager at Barnes & Noble in Cape Girardeau, points to those two iconic titles as possible drivers of the upcoming holiday gift-giving season when it comes to board and card games and other fun activities for families.

"The family that plays together, stays together," Seiler says, with a tongue-in-cheek play on words.

Touring through the store's game section, which has grown significantly in the 20 years he has worked at Barnes & Noble, Seiler points out the preponderance of classic game titles that fill the shelves -- titles baby boomers will remember from their childhoods and might be tempted to purchase for their grandchildren.

Daniel Seiler, community business development manager, and Jamie Goffey, store manager at Barnes and Noble in Cape Girardeau pose for a photo in the family games section Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015. (Glenn Landberg)

Next to Sorry sits Clue, and a retooled Risk is around the corner from a brilliantly colored Parcheesi.

The family games section at Barnes and Noble in Cape Girardeau. (Glenn Landberg)

Surprisingly back on the shelves is the electronic game Simon, the bright and colorful 8-inch-across, battery-operated, disc-shaped game console that made its debut in 1978 at a cost of $24.95; it's a memory game that challenges the player to recall the sequence of musical tones. The 1978 price tag would be equivalent to $90 in 2015 dollars, and today Simon has a suggested list price of the 1978 throwback $24.95.

When asked to describe the games now lining the shelves, Seiler uses the word "classy."

"Today's buyers want elegance and class in games, just as they do in everything else. They want items to look good sitting on the shelf," he says.

For instance, there is a Scrabble Deluxe Onyx Edition, designed exclusively for Barnes & Noble. A black wood frame surrounds the game-play surface, and it has storage for components, letter tiles stamped in silver foil and a raised grid that holds tiles in place when rotated on the set's built-in lazy susan.

Daniel Seiler, community business development manager, and Jamie Goffey, store manager at Barnes and Noble in Cape Girardeau pose for a photo in the family games section Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015. (Glenn Landberg)

With its next installment coming to theaters Dec. 18, there is no scarcity of "Star Wars" merchandise, including Star Wars: Armada, a tabletop game of colossal space ships in galactic battles, and Star Wars: X-Wing, a tabletop game featuring single- and two-man fighters, not heavily shielded high-firepower ships. Star Wars: Imperial Assault has the rebels on a series of missions against the Empire and, of course, Vader.

"Game of Thrones" has inspired its own gaggle of card games and board games, including a special edition of Monopoly.

Gaining in popularity is the card game Spot It!, which has about a half-dozen ways to play and is easy to learn for the entire family. Each deck has 55 round cards, with various images that players must match up. And, there are several versions -- animals, Major League Baseball, Disney princesses, Shopkins and more. More than 3 million Spot It! card decks were sold in North America in 2014.

Among 2015 holiday toy trends, Toys 'R' Us points to parents wishing to inspire interest in STEAM -- science, technology, engineering, arts and math -- as part of playtime. Parents magazine highlights three board games that help children develop "critical-thinking skills, logic and deduction." They are Q-bitz, which helps "develop special reasoning skills," Telepathy, which "requires deduction skills," and DiXit, a game of 84 illustrated and text-free cards that encourages storytelling.

The National Retail Federation forecasts 2015 U.S. holiday sales will increase 3.7 percent to $630 billion; its numbers are based on retail sales in November and December, excluding spending on automobiles and gasoline and at restaurants. Holiday sales represent 19 percent of annual retail sales of $3.2 trillion.

Compare those figures to the Hasbro money machine, which annually prints more than $30 billion in Monopoly money, and well more than $3 trillion has been printed since 1935.