Adult Christmas Party Games

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THE COMMUNICATION CRAZE GAME - You will need 3 or 4 pairs of contestants to play this game. The rest of the guests will have a blast just watching the people desperately try to communicate with each other! One pair of contestants will compete at a time. The pair sits with their backs to each other, each person holding a Christmas tray on his lap. One person's tray contains 15 or 20 object that have been arranged in a certain way. The other person's tray contains the same objects just piled in a heap in the middle of the tray. You can use any small Christmas related objects for this game, just as long as you have 2 of everything. Examples included ornaments, napkins, nativity characters, gift tags, and a string of lights. Once you have 2 of everything, arrange the items in a complicated way - circle the string of lights under one item and over the other. Of course, if you plan to have 4 pairs playing this game you will need to make up different trays for each group! The person with the prearranged objects has to describe the arrangement in such a way that his partner can duplicate it exactly on his own tray. When they feel they are done, they can face the guests! Nobody ever cares who wins, the fun is in watching them try!

 

SANTA HAT BADGE GAME - Purchase enough of the Santa Hat Badges for each guest you will have. Pin them on as each person arrives and let the game begin! Choose a word that no one is allowed to say. For example, the word "gift", "holiday", or "snow". The idea of the game is to trick people into saying the forbidden word and getting their badge. Whoever has the most badges by the end of the party wins a prize!

 

EYE WITNESS YOU - Divide into two teams. The first team members leave the room and must switch various items of clothing or accessories with one another, then return to the game room. The object is for the other team's members to try to guess all of the switches that have been made. Add up how many items they guessed correctly. Then let the other team have a turn to switch and let the first team eye-witness what's different. The team with the most correct answers in 5 minutes wins!

 

PRESENT GAME - Materials:
1 Pair of Gloves
1 Elf Hats
1 Die (perhaps two dice if group is large)
A Prize wrapped in several layers of newspaper and boxes.
The group stands in a circle. The gloves, hat, and wrapped box are placed in the center. Someone begins by rolling the dice. If they roll a 6, they hurry into the middle and put on the gloves and hat. They then start to unwrap the package. They must move fast because the next person to roll a 6 takes the hat off of the person in the center. The person in the center stops immediately and takes off the gloves, gives them to that person, and he/she goes back to the circle. The game continues like this until the package is completely unwrapped and the last person receives their prize. It's really noisy and incredibly fun!

 

BLOWING OUT THE CHRISTMAS CANDLE is a good old Christmas game that is amusing. One of our lighted Taper Candles is placed upon a table or chair and each player is, in turn, blindfolded and stood with his back to the candle, about two feet away. He is then told to take three steps forward, turn round three times, take four steps towards the candle and then blow it out. In the majority of cases, the blindfolded player will lose all idea of distance and position, and when he blows will be in quite another part of the room from that in which the candle stands. Of course, it is wise to have a player or two standing by the side of the candle to prevent any blindfolded person from getting too near.

 

GIFT-GIVING GAME - Great for Christmas Parties and Exchanges! Everyone brings a gift to the party, this is fun for gift exchanges during the holidays. TO BEGIN: Everyone stands in a circle holding the gift he/she brought to the party. Someone reads the story, every time the word RIGHT is read, everybody passes his gift to the right. Every time the word LEFT is read, gifts are passed to the left. The gift that each person is holding at the end of the story is the gift he keeps.

Story Example:
The Right Family Christmas Story Christmas was almost here and Mother RIGHT was finishing the Christmas baking. Father RIGHT, Susie RIGHT, and Billy RIGHT returned from their last minute Christmas errands. "There's not much LEFT to be done," said Father RIGHT as he came into the kitchen. "Did you leave the basket of food at Church?" asked Mother RIGHT? "I LEFT it RIGHT where you told me to," said Billy RIGHT." "I don't have any money LEFT." The hall telephone rang, and Susie RIGHT LEFT to answer it. She rushed back and told the family, "Aunt Tillie RIGHT LEFT a package for us RIGHT on Grandma RIGHT's porch. I'll go over there RIGHT now and get it," she said as she LEFT in a rush. Father RIGHT LEFT the kitchen and brought in the Christmas Tree. By the time Susie RIGHT returned, Mother RIGHT, Father RIGHT, and Billy RIGHT had begun trimming the tree. The entire RIGHT family sang carols as they finished the decorating. Then they LEFT all the presents arranged under the tree and went to bed, hoping they had selected the RIGHT gifts for their family. Now I hope you have the RIGHT present for yourself, because that's all that's LEFT of our story, except to wish you a Merry Christmas, isn't that RIGHT?

 

FIND YOUR PARTNER GAME - Before the party, take the Candy Cane Wire Garland and cut them into two pieces of various lengths. Be sure that you have two of every length! When the guests arrive, their objective is to find the other person at the party that has the same length piece of garland. When it comes time for a gift exchange, the pairs give their gifts to each other!

 

HO, HO, HOLD YOUR TONGUE! – Give each player a bag or stocking with 10 small treasures in it (candy, chocolates, little favors). Have bags labeled with players' names, so they don't get mixed up. Let players know at the start of the game exactly when the game will be ending—this game can be played throughout an entire party if you so choose. The object of the game is to catch fellow players saying one of the following words or phrases:

 

SANTA, REINDEER, SNOW, CHRISTMAS, ORNAMENT, PRESENTS

To help players, post the words prominently on a board where they can be seen often. If someone is caught saying one of the words on the list, that person has to give up a treasure from their stash. The player with the biggest haul of goodies at the end of the game is the winner! This game is always a big hit.

 

TRIVIA – Never was a holiday more suited to playing trivia games. If you are having a sit down dinner, roll up various trivia quizzes, and tie with ribbon to match your theme colors. Set the little bundles at each place setting. If you are serving food buffet style, put them in a decorative basket. We have provided a few ideas to build a trivia quiz around, or you can come up with other creative ideas. Think of the interests of your crowd before choosing a topic. Try to include trivia related to the topic with a broad range of difficulty. This will make it much more challenging, and your guests will leave the party a little wiser than they were when they arrived:

1. Sports – who holds what record in what sport, or match famous Sports figures with the correct sport. Ask a sports fanatic to help you pull this together!

2. Inventors and Explorers – Provide a list, and have guests try to match inventors and explorers with their invention or discovery. Much more difficult than you might think!

3. Music – Either have guests try to match Artists with Song Titles, match Song Titles with the year the song was a hit, or match Songs with the decade they were from. Spend 45 minutes at a music store with a pad of paper, looking at the backs of compilation and "best of" CD's, and you'll have enough music trivia to fill the whole year!

4. Movie stars/Movies – Provide a list, and have guests match as many actors/actresses with the films they starred in, or have them try to match movie titles with the year the movie was released. Another fun "Hollywood" trivia game is to see who can name the most films that have won an Academy Award for "Best Picture".

5. Make a list of the 5-10 most influential/important people of the year…many periodicals, such as Time™ magazine, will be featuring such articles between now and December 31^st. Ask guests to decide what significant contribution each made in order to make the list. The prize goes to the person who has all 5-10 or closest to it!

A great prize to award the winner of any of these trivia games would be a trivia game, such as Trivial Pursuit™, a subscription to a news periodical, or a coffee table book chronicling the past year.

 

CHARADES – Using the same categories as the trivia games, play charades in a specified category, using people, places and things from the entire century. As an alternative, make a list of historically significant events, and play charades to try to recreate images of the grand, silly, and world shaping events of history. For a more lighthearted game, use a Holiday related theme. Use titles of Christmas songs, Christmas movies (cartoon or real!), or Christmas traditions that everyone would be familiar with. A few ideas to get you started…"Chestnuts roasting on a open fire", "The Grinch who stole Christmas", "Miracle on 34^th Street", "Jack Frost nipping at your nose", "Frosty the Snowman", "Turkey with all the trimmings", etc. A winner every time!

 

NAME GAME – Provide each guest with 5 small pieces of paper, and a pencil. Ask them to write down the names of 5 famous people from history…leaders, movie stars, authors, sports figures, politicians, artists, inventors, scientists, etc. Fold the papers, and put them into a hat. Seat guests in a large circle. Each round is limited to 30 seconds, so have a watch with a second hand available. The first player pulls out a name, and tries to get the person beside them to guess the name. After the name is guessed, the clue giver can continue pulling names out of the hat for the full 30 seconds. Here are the rules: They can talk, but can't point to items. They can't spell out the name, but can say the letter the name starts with. They can reference just about anything, but the person's name. As an example, if the name is "Sammy Sosa", the clue giver might say…"The guy who had almost as many homeruns as Mark McGuire in the 1998 baseball season." "He plays for the Chicago Cubs", etc. Both the clue "giver" and the clue "guesser" get points for as many names as they guess in the 30-second time frame. Have each participant track his/her own points. The turn then passes to the guesser, who now becomes the clue giver, and his/her neighbor becomes the new guesser. This game is a blast to play, and really is not as difficult as these instructions would make it seem! Give it a try!

 

JINGLE BELL RELAY – Before the party you will need to purchase at least 40-1" Jingle Bells (available at craft and discount stores). Divide your group into two teams. Players race around a specific course with a heaping pile of jingling bells (at least 15), before handing them off to a teammate. Dropped bells must be retrieved before the handoff. The first team to complete the course wins. Your guests will feel like kids again!

 

LIMBO – The young and the young at heart always enjoy the classic beach game of "limbo". Try using a string of twinkle lights, or a strand of sparkly garland for your limbo stick. For a fun variation on the game, make it a little more challenging by adding a Santa Stomach to guests as they take their turn. Have a couple of oversized shirts, and some fluffy pillows on hand. Get ready for some howling laughter!

 

BALLOON POPPING CONTEST - Divide guests into two equal groups. About 25 yards away place two bags of inflated red and green balloons. These balloons should be over-inflated to make popping easier. At the sound of a ringing bell, the first two relay contestants, one from each team, run to the bag, and remove one balloon. Each must sit on it until it pops. Once the balloon pops, the players run back to the starting line, and tag the next player in line. The first team to complete the course wins. Not a quiet game…but a guaranteed favorite!

 

"HULA" HOOPLA – Purchase or borrow a couple of hula-hoops. Let guests know that at a specified time there will be a "hula" contest, and encourage them to practice if the mood strikes.

 

NAME THAT TUNE – You'll need a CD player and some compact discs with compilations of Christmas songs. Play the first few bars, and see which guest can name that tune the fastest. Keep track of points and award the winner a Christmas music CD. If your group is large, play a variation on this game. Using famous Christmas and holiday songs, list song titles on one side of a page, and the original Artists or songwriters on the other side. Make enough copies for all guests. Challenge guests to match as many as possible. A challenging but fun adventure!

 

WHITE ELEPHANT EXCHANGE - A white-elephant gift exchange is a fun event where you'll have an opportunity to exchange gifts with others who have brought them. There's one catch though -- the gifts are either gag gifts, useless, or generally undesirable for some reason. In order to participate, the guests are told to find or purchase a "gift" (set a $$ limit usually $10 is more than enough) that meets the requirement of being funny, undesirable, worthless, unwanted, etc. Wrap the gift and bring it to the party. At the party, when it comes time to exchange the gifts, draw numbers out of a hat. The number you draw is the order you'll pick a gift in (1 goes first, then 2, then 3, etc). Initially, person #1 picks a gift. Then, person #2 (and all others after) have the option of either a) stealing person #1's gift; or b) opening a new gift. If #2 steals #1's gift, #1 has to open a new gift. Once this is complete, #3 can either steal or pick a new gift. If #3 steals #2 or #1's gift, they may either steal another gift or open a new one. There is a three-steal limit on gifts (no gift can be stolen more than three times), and you can't steal a gift that was just stolen from you.

 

HUM THAT CAROL GAME - Write Christmas songs on slips of paper (2 of each song). Then put as many pairs of songs as you have pairs of people in a bag. Let each person draw a slip of paper out not showing it to anyone. Instruct the people that they are to begin humming the song on their slip of paper when you say "go". The object of the game is to locate the other person humming the same song that you are humming. When the partners find each other they hold hands and begin to sing the words to their song! They win the prize! It's great fun with a large group. Make sure you spread everyone around the room to begin with and mix up the slips really good.

 

Check out our Games page for even more games!