Crystal Growing Maple Tree

A novelty gift is one with a sense of humor or a surprise built in, like a joke card game, a classic toy or a desk oddity. Ours run from Gift Republic's card games to Copernicus Toys' Drinking Bird and Kikkerland's paper plane launcher.

Pick one box that covers several games. SuckUK's Games Night compendium holds dice, cards, checkers and dominoes, and its lid is the board. WS Game Company's bookshelf editions of Clue, Connect 4 and Battleship play like the originals and shelve like books.

Match it to a hobby. Putt Perfect suits a golfer, the vinyl cleaning kit suits a record collector, and Mixology Dice suit someone with a bar cart. Each comes in well under $50. Gentlemen's Hardware, based in Nashville, also makes a sneaker cleaning kit and a golf multi-tool.

Copernicus Toys makes most of ours. The robotic arm kit uses real plastic hydraulics and suits ages 8 and up with an adult, and Root Beer Chemistry and the DIY Volcano turn the kitchen into a lab.

Yes. Bless Your Heart, from the editors of Garden & Gun, has 200 question cards on the modern South, and Kikkerland makes an Americana Trivia game. Gift Republic's card packs add quick party games.

Novelty and games are for playing, laughing and making things. Curiosities are natural history pieces and unusual objects for display, like insect specimens and skulls. If it gets played with, it lives here.

No, we don't carry video games or consoles. This shelf is board games, card games, puzzles and build kits. For a night off screens, start with the Games Night compendium.

High St., a 17,000-square-foot lifestyle store at 1401 Reading Rd in Over-the-Rhine, carries novelty gifts, games and puzzles alongside books, barware and curiosities. We're open every day but Tuesday, 10am to 6pm, with Sunday hours of 11am to 4pm. In-stock online orders are usually ready for pickup in about two hours, and shipping is free over $150.