Christmas Games

It’s possible that no other single activity really embraces camaraderie, playfulness, and fierce (but friendly) competition as heartily participating in playing indoor games with friends and family. Christmas games do all those things but also serve the purpose of bringing friends and family together to interact directly with each other in a competitive and happy way.

Participating in Christmas games is another way of sharing, but it is also doing something tangible to get into the festive, jolly, and relaxed mood for the holidays. Otherwise, it’s easy to get caught up in all the preparation and shopping and become ridden with anxiety. Here are some holiday and Christmas games that will cause fierce but friendly competition and leave everyone in a jolly mood.

For the “Gift Wrap” game, items needed will be small gifts, wrapping paper, scotch tape, and music that can be turned on and off at will. Each gift item is wrapped in several layers of paper. The number of layers used will depend on how long you want the game to last. A gift is given to the group which should start passing around the gift when the music starts. Whenever the music stops, whoever has the gift should remove one layer of gift wrap. This continues until the last layer of paper is removed. Whoever has the gift unwrapped gets to keep it.

The items needed for the “Sock Guessing” Christmas game are two or three thick, new thermal socks, items used or seen during Christmas, pens, pencils, and paper. Each sock is stuffed with 20-25 items that are used or seen during the Christmas season. These can be useful items such as scotch tape, ornaments, decorations, etc. Each sock should have the same items and the opening should be tied with a ribbon so the contents inside aren't visible. The socks are then passed around for each person to try to feel and guess the items then write down what they think is in the sock. The person with the most correct guesses of objects is the winner and can be awarded a special gift or token.

The “'Gift Grab Card Game” requires two decks of cards and a few small Christmas gifts that are wrapped to look very interesting and enticing. One deck of cards is passed out one card at a time to guests. Each should have an equal number of cards from the deck. The gifts are then placed in the center of the group. Someone then calls out cards from the second deck. Whoever has the matching card gets to choose a gift. When all the gifts are taken, everyone can steal gifts from each other until the deck is finished and those with gifts get to open and keep them as prizes. The fun increases when the stealing begins, because everyone will have different ideas about which gift looks interesting and will try to hang onto it by stealing it over and over if it is stolen.

A children's Christmas game is “Pin the Nose on the Reindeer,” which is the Christmas version of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.” The items needed are a drawing of a reindeer's head, with an incomplete drawing of the nose, and several noses with the names of the children on one side and tape on the other. The picture should be placed against a wall so that children can reach the nose. Each child then gets a nose. They take turns being blindfolded, spun around a couple times to disorient them a little, then told to walk to the reindeer to place the nose on the picture. The child who places the nose closes to the reindeer's nose wins.

A delightful Christmas game for work is the “Match the Desk to the Item” game. A day or so before the Christmas party at work, someone needs to secretly take one item from each person's desk and assign a number to each item. At the party, all the items are displayed for everyone to guess whose desk the item belongs to.