Hilarious Christmas Party Games for the Family, Adults and Kids
It’s that time of year again – time to enjoy a few Christmas party games, buy
presents, and of course get together with cherished friends and beloved family.
Christmas games may play an important role in your Christmas party, so you
want to make sure you have some crowd favorites as well as some unique games
that people may not have played before.
The types of games you choose
also depend on your guests – if you’re throwing a family Christmas party, you
want games people of all ages
can enjoy, or you may want to arrange some separate Christmas party
activities for the kids to keep them occupied while the adults eat and
talk. But of course, there are also plenty of Christmas games
for adults.
With the right choice of games you can make your
Christmas party one your guests will never forget.
The Gift Wrapping Race
Although there are many
classic Christmas party games that have been played around the world
for decades, we don’t all want to follow the crowd. If you have a
fairly off-beat group of friends or family together for Christmas,
you might want to try unveiling a unique game they haven’t heard of
before.
Here’s a good one, courtesy of the Moms Who Think
website: turn wrapping gifts into a Christmas party game.
You
don’t need to use actual gifts for this – empty boxes will do the
trick. You need the box, wrapping paper, scissors and tape.
Put each of these items at a different place around the room (you
need one of each per team – in other words, for two teams you need
two rolls of wrapping paper, two pairs of scissors, and two rolls of
tape).
The game works as a relay race. There should be one
box for everyone competing, as well as one person to referee and
judge the competition. The judge says, ‘Start,’ and then the first
person from each team must race to wrap their box. Once the first
person finishes wrapping their ‘gift,’ the next person in the team
can begin – until everyone on each team has wrapped a box.
Obviously, the main aim is to wrap all the boxes faster than the
other team – but the fastest team doesn’t necessarily win. That’s
what the referee is for.
Points can be won not just for
speed, but also for how good each gift looks and any other criteria
the judge wants to use, like points for wrapping style, straightness
of taping, or how good each team looks with their boxes at the end
of the game.
This is a game better played with older guests –
rushing around with scissors doesn’t work so well for young kids 🙂
Christmas Games for Kids – Hilarious Scavenger Hunts
Many of the other Christmas games here can be played with
kids, but you just have to simplify them a little bit.
Charades is a good idea – it can
work with kids, but if it’s too hard they’ll get bored straight
away.
The problem is, if you make it too easy any adults playing
will get bored. That’s why it can be good to have separate games for
adults and kids to play, so everyone is entertained.
When it
comes to kids’ games, the sillier the better!
Scavenger hunts
are always a big hit with younger kids, and they’re perfect when you
have a big group of kids that needs to be kept entertained.
Before anyone arrives, hide a whole lot of candy all over your
property – not just in the house, but in random places in the back
yard and garage as well.
When all the kids have arrived, tell
them there’s candy hidden all over the place… they’ll keep
themselves occupied for quite a while (depending how much candy you
put out, of course!).
What’s
In the Stocking? Christmas Bingo and Christmas Charades
You
don’t have to buy a bunch of props and extras for great Christmas
party games – we all know our finances tend to get stretched to the
limit around Christmas time, so here are some suggestions for good
free party games to play during Christmas.
One good free game is called
What’s In The Stocking?
It’s very simple – find some random
objects from around the house, and get a stocking ready for the
game. One person plays at a time. Blindfold the person who is
playing and put an object in the stocking – make sure they don’t
see!
They then have to feel
the object through the stocking and try to guess what it is.
This is
a great one because it can work with people of all ages.
Obviously
the downside is that you have to take turns, so let’s look at a free
group game.
A popular choice is Christmas Bingo.
It
can work with big groups and can be played with guests of any age.
Most people know how to play Bingo – the twist with Christmas Bingo
is that instead of numbers, everyone has Christmas words on their
card. One person can be the game leader, pulling words at random out
of a hat.
As each word is called out, the guests note it on their
score card (this can be done by placing a button on each word,
rather than marking the card, so you can use the cards over and over
again). When someone crosses off every word along a column or row on
their card they yell out, “Bingo!” and the game is over (until the
next round).
Of course, one easy way to find free Christmas
party game ideas is to simply take non-Christmas games and give them
a Christmas theme.
Christmas
Charades
– why not play
charades where everything relates to Christmas?
You can watch
your friends, coworkers or family members trying to imitate Rudolph
the Red-nose Reindeer or try to mime what ‘snow’ looks like – should
be a funny experience!
The same can be done with Pictionary,
although you’ll have to choose some topics that won’t be easily
guessed from a simple picture.
Trivial Pursuit with a Christmas Twist and Christmas Whispers
It can be tough to choose the right party games when you have
the whole family gathered together, young and old.
Games like
charades often don’t work very well when you have a group that spans
three generations, so it’s a good idea to keep a few whole-family
games in your back pocket.
If you don’t have any very young
kids in your group, a good family game is trivial pursuit – with a
Christmas twist, of course.
You’ll need to do some planning
for this, coming up with plenty of questions and answers and writing
them on cards. For question ideas, think about common Christmas
songs, the story of Santa and Rudolph, and the story of the birth of
Jesus.
A good example question could be: ‘Who helps Santa
make his toys?’ (Answer: the elves.)
Obviously, you’ll want
to tweak the difficulty of the questions depending on your group of
guests. If you have very young and very old together, throw in a few
questions only they will know the answer to – for instance, a
reference to a 1950s Christmas song for the older people, and a
reference to a Disney movie for the kids.
Look up some
Christmas facts and trivia online to get ideas for tricky questions.
A tougher question could be something like: ‘The Three Wise Men
brought the baby Jesus frankincense, myrrh, and what?’
Christmas Whispers is another good Christmas party game for the
whole family
You probably have some idea of how it works:
you all sit in a circle, close enough to whisper to each other.
The first person makes up a phrase that has something to do with
Christmas – it should be fairly long and complicated.
They
tell it to the person on their left, in a quiet whisper, and then
person number two tells the next person in the circle, and so on,
until the phrase goes all the way around the circle. The last person
in line then says the phrase out loud.
The whole idea is that
usually the original phrase gets lost in the whispers, and the final
phrase is completely different – and often hilarious.
The
bigger the group, the better.
Games for Adult Christmas
Parties
– Silly Christmas Boat Race and The Dress Up Game
Work parties or gatherings with close friends give you a chance to
kick back and relax, and not worry about doing anything
‘inappropriate’ in front of the kids or grandparents.
So there are
quite a few games for adult Christmas parties which are a little
more ‘risque’ than the ones we’ve talked about so far.
One
idea is a bit like the ‘boat race’ drinking game
There are
two props each team is given to play the game: balloons, and a pair
of pantyhose. Divide your group into two teams – it can be played
with large groups but it’s better for smaller parties of eight to
ten people.
The aim of the game is to blow up your balloons
and stuff them inside the pantyhose until no more can fit. When the
pantyhose are full of balloons, one of the team members puts them on
their head like a pair of reindeer antlers and yells out, “Rudolph!”
You can add some extra fun by having red noses for the two team
leader to wear.
Be warned – this game can get very
competitive! 🙂
Another game we like is known by many names,
but let’s call it the Dress Up Game
Here’s how you prepare
for the game: you choose a prize, and put it inside a small box and
wrap it up. You then put that wrapped box inside a bigger box, and
wrap that. Keep doing this – try to get six or seven layers of
boxes.
Now, to play the game itself, you need some props. You
can choose and Christmas-related clothes – Santa hats, a coat, even
some silly glasses if you like. The most important thing, though, is
oven gloves. There needs to be something for people to put on their
hands that makes unwrapping the boxes tricky.
You all sit in
a circle, with the wrapped up prize in the middle. You roll a dice,
and whoever rolls a 6 has to put on every item of clothing and all
the props, including the gloves, and start trying to unwrap the
prize.
As this is happening, everyone else keeps rolling the
dice – until the next person rolls a 6. When that happens, the new
6-roller has to take all the props off the other person, put them
on, and start unwrapping the boxes.
Whoever unwraps the prize
wins.
This Christmas party game works best when no one knows
what the prize is. If you choose the prize, it can be funny to
choose something silly and worthless, but talk it up as if it’s
something really valuable.
Then watch your friends go crazy
trying to unwrap it… only to discover it’s actually something
lame.
Ideas for Christmas Decorations and
Arrangements
Let’s look at a few more general
Christmas party ideas.
After all, games are important but they don’t make a party on
their own – good parties need things like food and drinks,
comfortable seating arrangements, gifts and so on.
Decorations are one aspect of a good Christmas party that allow you
to let your creativity run wild. Your choice of decorations can also
link in with the games you choose to play – if you really plan it
well, you can create a ‘theme within a theme’ for your party where
the whole party becomes one big game.
It’s your Christmas
party, you make the rules – literally, you can make up all kinds of
crazy rules to do with food, Christmas crackers, giving presents,
wearing Santa hats – whatever you can think of.
Obviously,
you need to be careful with your arrangements for seating and tables
– make sure you have enough room for any food you’ll be eating as
well as areas cleared for playing games before guests arrive.
Arrange a ‘kid’s table’ if the children will be eating
separately from the adults.
This can make the whole affair a
lot easier. For decorations themselves, colored lights are always a
hit if you have the time and money to put into them. If you’re not
willing to spend a bunch on ornaments and lighting, you can always
make your own simple decorations – some colored paper and creative
cutting are often enough to bring the Christmas feel to a dining
room or living room. Plastic reindeer or a little Santa Claus make
for great front yard ornaments.
Beyond that you’ll also want
to be selective with food and drinks. If you’re planning to put on a
whole meal, you might want to enlist a few helpers – arrange
Christmas dinner is rarely a one-person job. If it’s just a casual
party for adults, you can stick with light finger food – but you may
want to make sure there’s plenty of champagne on hand 🙂
Other Christmas Party Activities
– Christmas Tree Decoration and
The Secret Santa
Everybody expects activities when they go to
a Christmas party, even if it’s something basic like pulling
Christmas crackers.
Activities are especially important if there
will be a few people at your party who don’t know each other –
Christmas party games are a great ice-breaker and let people relax
and enjoy themselves.
But
activities don’t have to be limited to games – there are plenty of
other ways to have fun together around Christmas time.
Christmas
carol singing is one example, where a group of you knock on random
doors in your neighborhood and sing Christmas songs. Many people
appreciate this show of goodwill at Christmas time.
Tree
decorating is another great one for the family to participate in. If
you have young kids, let them play a part in decorating the tree,
and give the littlest one a boost to put the star or angel on top –
this is a little thing to grown-ups but it can be a big deal to a
kid. As we get older we often forget it’s the little things that
make Christmas special for children.
The Secret Santa is
another fun activity, which is perfect for work places. Everyone
gets designated a ‘secret Santa’ who has to buy them a gift – but no
one is allowed to know who is buying for them, even after they
receive the gift. This gives you a chance to play an anonymous joke
on a work friend, and no one will ever know it was you! (Unless you
tell them, of course.)
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