Christmas Party Game Ideas For Groups

When guests gather for the holidays at your house, it’s fun to have some games in mind for everyone to play. You can choose to set up your favorite board games like Scrabble and Monopoly. And it’s an unexpected treat when you come up with your own games.

Games get everyone up and involved. You can have prizes on hand like candy gifts, small ornaments or other stocking stuffers to make it even more fun.

Make use of Christmas items you already have on hand. Or make things you need to complete the game. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just festive.

Make or buy felt Santa hats with pin backings or clothespins. As people enter, give them a Santa hat to put on their shirt. Tell everyone a word that is banned from the evening. It can be “Santa” or “present” or “Christmas.”

Then, whenever someone slips and says the forbidden word, they lose their Santa hat. The person with the one remaining hat wins a prize. This is especially fun for young children to join in as they will try their hardest to be the winner.

This is fun to do for all ages. Have a Christmas basket filled with empty boxes available along with two rolls of wrapping paper, two scissors, two rolls of tape and two rolls of ribbon.

Two blindfolded volunteers will race against each other to see who can wrap their present the fastest. They have to cut the paper, wrap the gift and tie a bow all without seeing what they are doing.

Hilarity will ensue as the wrapping goes awry.

The grab bag has become tradition in some families. Why not start it this year in yours? There are a number of ways to play this festive game. You start by asking everyone to bring a small grab bag Christmas gift. Make sure you limit the price to under $5 or $15 so that everyone can participate. You can push them in the direction of dollar store items, Christmas cookies, or just little trinkets.

Gather everyone together in the living room and give out numbers—as many as there are people playing starting with the number one. The person who draws the lowest number goes first.

How to Play:

So, number one starts and gets to select any holiday gift and take it from that person’s hand. The gifts remain wrapped so no one knows what they are picking. Then number two goes. This person can select from any of the gifts—even the one that the person before them picked.

This gets fun when you get to the higher numbers as a present may have been passed around three or more times. After everyone has gone, you can open the gifts to see what you ended up with. The funny mismatches make it a silly good time.

Another version of the Grab Bag game is to have everyone stand around in a circle holding their gift. They then pass it to the right to the music (like in musical chairs). When the music stops, the gift they are holding becomes theirs.

Play and stop the music several times so that no one knows what they are going to end up with.

Any game can be fun if you do it in the right spirit. Be sure everyone gets up to play and offer unique prizes so everyone looks forward to the party again the next year.