40 Christmas Games for the Whole Family

Start with the no-setup games tonight: they need nothing but the people in the room, and each round takes a few minutes.

13 games with no setup

These work in a living room, a car or a line at the post office. Nobody needs paper, and a 3-year-old can play most of them with help.

Guessing games

1. Start here Santa Says: Simon Says with a Santa hat. If Santa doesn’t say “Santa says,” anyone who moves sits down for one round, then comes back in.
2. I Spy, holiday edition: the clue has to be something red, green, gold or sparkly, which narrows it down fast.
3. Twenty questions about a present: one player thinks of a gift, and the others ask yes-or-no questions until someone guesses it.
4. Guess the carol: hum the first line of a Christmas song with your mouth closed. The first person to name it hums the next one.

Word and memory games

5. The reindeer name chain: each player says a reindeer name and adds a new made-up one. Keep the chain going until someone forgets an earlier name.
6. I packed Santa’s sleigh: the classic memory game, where each player repeats the list and adds one item in alphabetical order.
7. One-word story: sit in a circle and tell a Christmas Eve story one word per person. It falls apart in a good way by the third sentence.
8. Rhyme time: someone says a holiday word, like snow, and everyone takes turns with a rhyme until nobody can think of one.

Quiet games for the car

9. Count the lights: pick a color and count houses with lights of that color on one street. The highest count picks the next game.
10. Would you rather, Christmas edition: would you rather ride in Santa’s sleigh or live in a snow globe? Everyone has to give a reason.
11. Who am I: tape or whisper a holiday character to one player, who asks questions to find out who they are.
12. The quiet game, North Pole rules: whoever stays silent longest gets to be the elf who picks the next song.
13. Fortunately, unfortunately: one player starts a story about a lost present, and the next adds a twist that starts with the opposite word.

Santa Says is my favorite on this page. It works for every age at once, and the rules take ten seconds to explain.

14 games for the table

Pull up chairs after dinner. These need paper, a pencil, a deck of cards or a few things from the kitchen drawer.

Paper and pencil

14. Christmas Pictionary: write holiday words on slips of paper, and teams take turns drawing them with a one-minute timer.
15. Draw Santa blindfolded: everyone draws Santa with their eyes closed, then votes for the funniest one.
16. Holiday word scramble: write ten holiday words with the letters mixed up and see who unscrambles them first.
17. Christmas tic-tac-toe: play with candy canes and gingerbread shapes cut from paper instead of X and O.
18. Fill-in-the-blank letters to Santa: one player writes a letter with blanks, and the others call out nouns and verbs without seeing it.

Cards and dice

19. Christmas Go Fish: play the classic card game, but every match comes with a holiday wish said out loud.
20. Reindeer race with one die: draw a track of 20 squares, give each player a paper reindeer and roll to move.
21. War, sleigh version: the player with the higher card says “ho ho ho” and takes both cards.
22. Roll a snowman: roll a die to earn each part of a snowman you draw, from the base to the hat.

Things from the kitchen

23. Candy cane hook race: hold a candy cane in your mouth and try to pick up other candy canes with it.
24. Cookie face race: put a cookie on your forehead and move it to your mouth without using your hands.
25. Marshmallow tower: give each team 30 mini marshmallows and 20 toothpicks, and see whose tower stands tallest after three minutes.
26. Guess the jar: fill a jar with jingle bells, buttons or pasta, and everyone writes a guess. Closest guess wins the first cookie.
27. Spoon and ornament walk: carry an unbreakable ornament on a spoon across the kitchen and back.

13 games that get everyone moving

Clear a space in the living room or bundle up for the yard. These are for the hour when nobody can sit still anymore.

Living room games

28. Freeze Dance: play Christmas music and stop it without warning. Anyone still moving does a silly pose for the next round.
29. Musical chairs, snowman rules: kids who are out become snowmen who try to make the others laugh.
30. Pin the nose on the reindeer: draw a reindeer on a big sheet of paper and use a red paper circle and a scarf as a blindfold.
31. Hide the ornament: one player hides an unbreakable ornament while the others wait in the hall. Everyone gets “warmer” or “colder” clues.
32. Christmas charades: act out holiday words without talking while your team guesses before the timer runs out.

Relays and races

33. Reindeer relay: teams pass a pair of paper antlers down the line, and each player puts them on before passing them.
34. Wrap the mummy elf: teams wrap one player in toilet paper or wrapping paper scraps, and the best-wrapped elf wins.
35. Stocking stuff race: each team fills a stocking with ten small objects from across the room, one item per trip.
36. Snowball toss: crumple white paper into snowballs and toss them into a laundry basket from three steps back.

Outdoor or big-space games

37. Snow angel contest: in real snow or on a blanket, everyone makes an angel and the family votes on categories.
38. Reindeer tag: whoever is “it” wears antlers and passes them to the next person they tag.
39. Wrapping paper treasure hunt: hide five small wrapped boxes, and give each child a written or drawn clue to the next one.
40. Red light, green light, sleigh edition: the caller says “red ornament” for stop and “green tree” for go.

A few notes on the games

Britannica says charades probably started in 18th-century France as a riddle about the syllables of a word, and that the acted version became the most popular form. So the game at number 32 has been a party trick for a long time.

If you have more time to fill, our Elf on the Shelf ideas cover the mornings, and Christmas jokes are good between rounds. Christmas crafts for kids work for a quiet afternoon. The rest of the games and traditions live in the Family hub, and we explain how we write these lists on How we pick.

Number 25, the marshmallow tower, is the one I’d put first on any list for mixed ages.