If the whole family is descending on your home these holidays, we can’t promise there won’t be a few tears before bedtime, but we can promise that these games will keep everyone entertained and hopefully distract them from asking you why you’re not married yet.
Christmas Charades
Write out at least 50 Christmas related songs, movies, books and TV shows on red cards and put them in a decorated mason jar. When the family comes over, pull out the jar, grab a card and get everyone to act out the thing that is written on the card – no talking! Hint hint: this also makes a cute gift for teachers or friends.
Snowman Bowling
Get a few square plastic boxes and cover them in white wrapping paper. Then stack them on top of each other and decorate them to look like a snowman. Next stop: snowman bowling! Get a ball and everybody gets a chance to try and knock down the snowman. Best played in the garden.
White Elephant
Disclaimer: this could cause a few family squabbles on Christmas morning but we think it’s fun! White Elephant works like this: everyone pulls a number from a hat and opens a gift in that order. The person who pulls ‘1’ chooses a gift first, ‘2’ goes second and so on. When it’s the next person’s turn, they can either choose to steal one of the gifts that have already been opened or pick a new one from under the tree. Good luck!
Surprise Pop
Instead of using a stocking, blow up tons of colourful balloons and fill them with small toys, love notes and sweets and leave them on the bottom of the kids’ beds for when they wake up on Christmas morning. Then let them pop them to get their gifts. If they’re older and you are around to supervise, they could even try throwing darts to pop them.
Who Dat?
Have one person write a bunch of Christmas related people and things (Rudolf, Santa, Michael Bublé, Christmas tree) on pieces of paper. Each person chooses one without peeking and sticks it on their forehead facing outwards. The rest of the people take turns describing the name on the card to the person who is wearing it, without saying any of the words of the paper, until they guess who/what they are.
20 Questions
One person selects a holiday object from around the house and hides it in a stocking. The rest of the team must try work out what the object is by asking only ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions. The winner is the person who guesses the object correctly.
Pompom Picking
Fill one bowl with white pompoms and have an empty bowl on the other side of the table. Give the kids a chance to try and transfer all of the pompoms from one bowl to the other using only a plastic spoon in their mouth – no hands! They only have one minute to see how many they can transfer and the one who moves the most wins. Ready, set, play!