Christmas party games for the whole family

A Christmas Eve game plan

Christmas Eve is long, and the kids are counting every minute. A loose plan of three or four games keeps the evening moving without anyone having to run it.

1. 1After dinner, warm up with the Christmas would you rather questions. Everyone answers, and nobody has to stand up yet.
2. 2Split into teams for charades or Forehead Guess with the Christmas deck. Twenty to thirty minutes is plenty.
3. 3While dessert goes around, play Imposter or Who Am I? at the table.
4. 4Before bed, read a few Most Likely To Christmas questions and send the kids upstairs laughing.

On Christmas Day, keep it to quick games. Name 3 Things and Would You Rather fit between presents, phone calls and the next round of food.

Christmas games for kids

Kids at Christmas have energy to burn and a long wait ahead. Games that let them move, draw and shout make the hours go faster.

• Simon Says reads every command out loud, so even kids who can't read yet can play.
• Charades with the Christmas deck. Acting out a reindeer learning to fly is about as good as it gets for a seven-year-old.
• Draw & Guess. Candy canes and stockings are easy to draw, and younger kids often beat the adults.
• Who Am I? With a grown-up answering the questions, younger kids can work out a snowman or a candy cane in a few tries.

For older kids and teens at a sleepover, the Christmas truth or dare questions keep things clean, and every dare works in a living room.

Christmas party games for big groups and mixed ages

A holiday party mixes friends, neighbors, cousins and coworkers who don't all know each other. Start with a game where everyone plays at once, like Most Likely To or Would You Rather, before you ask anyone to act something out.

For team games, count off by number so families and friend groups get split up. Charades and Forehead Guess take up to 4 teams, and Fishbowl handles up to 20 players. With more than 12 people, Imposter still works if you rotate people in after each round.

At a party with coworkers, the card games and team games work best, and Truth or Dare is better left for family and friends. Our party games for large groups and icebreaker games have more ideas.

Swapping gifts too? Our free Secret Santa generator draws names and sends each person a private link to their match, and the White Elephant gift exchange tracks turns and steals on one phone.

Playing with family over video

If grandparents or cousins are spending Christmas somewhere else, bring them in on a video call. One person opens the game and shares their screen, and everyone else plays from wherever they are. If you can, put the call on the TV, so the whole room can see the faces on the other end.

• Forehead Guess: the host shares the screen, the guesser looks away from it, and family on both ends shout clues.
• Charades: the actor opens the game on their own phone, so the prompt stays private, and acts it out for the camera.
• Would You Rather and Most Likely To: share the card and have everyone answer at the same time, on three.

Leave Imposter and Draw & Guess for the people in the room: Imposter needs private cards, and Draw & Guess needs everyone around one screen. There are more setup tips in our video call games.

Tips for the host

• Choose the first game before anyone asks. A full room deciding together usually decides on nothing.
• Charge the phone and turn the brightness up. Running out of battery in the middle of a round ends the fun fast.
• Let the youngest player go first, and let the winner pick the next game, not the whole night.
• Mix sitting games and standing games, so the people on the couch and the people by the snacks both get a turn.
• Hosting Thanksgiving too? The Thanksgiving games use the same games with a Thanksgiving deck.

Questions