The fun of the season isn’t just about the presents – it’s about getting together, laughing, and having a heaping helping of fun!! Here are a few ways to get the giggles and belly-laughs started…
Ornament Race
Using a wrapped gift, fan as many ornaments as possible into the designated taped off square.
Mixed-Up Mittens
Throw a bunch of mittens in a pile. First person to dive in and find a matching pair – and put them on – wins. (And if it’s like my house, some mittens don’t actually have a match!)
Pass the Wrapped Parcel
Wrap a small treat in a box, then place it in a larger box with another treat. Wrap. Continue until there are at least 5 layers. Then pass the parcel while music plays. When music stops, the person holding gets to unwrap and keep the treat. Depending on age, you might want to have extra treats on hand so that at the end of the game, so players who didn’t get to open a layer can still get a treat.
Right Left Rudolph
Variation of pass the parcel. The parcel goes left or right as you read a story with lefts and rights in it. Person holding the parcel at the end of story keeps it. More fun with multiple parcels.Make your own story, or print here.
Balancing Ornaments
In teams of two, balance as many ornaments on a yard stick as possible!
Christmas Toss
How many snowballs (crumpled white tissue paper) can you throw through the wreath?
Pin the Nose on Rudolph
Traditional pin the tail game…make your own, or print here.
Reindeer Games
Tie a pom pom to a string. Each player puts the other end of the string in their mouth and tries to balance the pom pom on their nose.
Snow Storm
Give each player a box of tissues and see who can empty their box first, pulling out one sheet of snow/tissue at a time.
Snowman Wrap
Teams pick one person to be wrapped like a snowman using toilet paper, and a few extras like black circles, red crepe paper, orange triangles, etc. Teams wrap their snowman as best as they can in 2 minutes…the best snowman wins.
Jingle Bell Rock
Tie empty tissue boxes to the waist of each player, then fill the box with jingle bells. The first player to wiggle, dance and jump to get the most bells out of the box, wins.
Tic Tac Snow
Tic tac toe with cotton balls and a premade tic tac toe board. Glue a sequin on the opposing person’s cotton balls to tell them apart. Make your own game, or print here.
Santa Hat
One person is Santa and sits in a chair across the room. In turn, each child is blindfolded, turned around 3 times, and tries to walk across the room and put the Santa hat on Santa.
Snowball Race
Styrofoam balls, wooden spoons and mittens. Play in teams, with ½ the team on opposite sides of room. One by one, they put on mittens and hold the styrofoam ball on the wooden spoon while racing to their teammate on the other side of the room. First team to have all players get across the room, wins.
Candy Cane Pass
You need at least 4 candy canes per team and a few extras in case they break. Each player holds 4 candy canes between their fingers and passes them down the line, teammate to teammate, without dropping. If a person drops it, they are out. Keep doing this until one person is left.
Rudolph Dash
Each player puts a dab of Vaseline on their nose. Choose the person to go first, and that player puts a red paper circle on their nose. Players line up in a straight line and pass the nose down the line. It has to stick onto your nose for at least 3 seconds, and if it falls off before 3 seconds (or you forget to put it on your nose and just pass it on) you are out
Hot Potato Candy Cane
Played like the traditional game known as “Hot Potato”… a candy cane is passed from person to person around the circle while someone plays Christmas music. If you want to add a little more challenge to the game you can call out the word “CHANGE” from time to time and change the direction in which the candy cane is passed. Anyone left holding the candy cane when music stops, is out. Play until you have one winner.
Gift Stacking Relay
Divide teams in two, then split each team so half are at one end of the room and half at the other end.
The first person races with 1 gift to their teammate, where they hand off the gift and add 1 more gift. Now the person must take 2 gifts to the other end, where the next person must take 3 gifts, etc. until one team gets 10 stacked gifts from one end of the room to the other.
If the gifts fall then the person must go back to their starting point and begin again.
Favorite Brain Teasers: