Christmas party games have one job: to get a room of people who see each other once a year to stop standing awkwardly near the food. That is it. Most published lists ignore this and hand you elaborate craft activities that require a trip to a craft shop and forty minutes of setup, by which point the moment has passed.
So this list is sorted by who is actually in the room, because a couple on a sofa, eight adults after dinner and forty people in a village hall need completely different things. Choosing games for a Christmas party is mostly a question of group size, and almost nothing to do with how festive the game sounds.
What separates a good Christmas party game from a bad one
Three tests, and you can run them in about ten seconds each.
Can you explain it in one sentence? If the rules take longer than the first round, half the room has drifted back to their phones before you finish. Every game below passes this.
Does it work if only some people join? Christmas gatherings always contain someone who does not want to play, often a teenager or an in-law. A good game absorbs partial participation. A bad one grinds to a halt or, worse, makes the reluctant person the centre of attention.
Does it need anything you do not already own? Paper, pens and a phone are fair. A printed set of cards you were supposed to prepare in November is not.
Fun Christmas party games with no equipment
Start here. These need nothing but people, and they are the ones to reach for when the meal ends and the room goes quiet.
1. Christmas song intros. Play the first two seconds of a track, first to shout the title wins. Devastating, endless, and it works from any phone.
2. Guess the Christmas jumper. Photograph everyone's jumper as they arrive, then show the pictures and guess who is wearing what. Costs nothing and forces people to look at each other.
3. Two truths and a lie, festive edition. Three claims about your worst Christmas. The lie is a shield, so nobody has to be more honest than they want to be.
4. Christmas film quotes. Read a line, name the film. Reliably uncovers a relative with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Christmas films and no other outlet for it.
5. Festive categories. Pick a category, go round the room naming items, no repeats and no hesitating. Impossible to be bad at, which is exactly what you want first.
6. Fishbowl. Everyone writes three phrases on scraps of paper, then three rounds with the same slips: describe, act, one word only. It needs a pen and it is the best group game there is.
Christmas party games for adults
Once the children are in bed or were never invited, the bar for what is funny drops considerably and that is the point. These are the funny Christmas party games for adults that are worth the evening, and none of them need anything you would have to buy.
7. Word karaoke. A word appears, whoever grabs the phone sings any song containing it for fifteen seconds, and everyone else votes. It is the fastest way to get a room of self-conscious adults performing, because fifteen seconds is over before the fear arrives. Our app Grab The Phone Karaoke runs it on one phone, or use the free word generator if you would rather read the words out yourself.
8. Contact. One person holds a secret word and gives its first letter, everyone else works towards it out loud until two people land on the same guess. Rewards being quick rather than loud, so the quiet ones do well.
9. Worst gift stories. Everyone describes the worst present they have ever received, and the room votes on the winner. Warmer than it sounds, and it produces genuinely good stories.
10. One-handed wrapping race. Wrap a present with one hand behind your back. Absurd, over in ninety seconds, and the results are photographs you will keep.
11. Paper telephone. Write a phrase, pass it on, the next person draws it, the next describes the drawing. Everyone writes at once, and reading the stacks out at the end is the whole payoff.
12. Christmas confessions. Each person admits one festive thing they secretly hate. The relief in the room when somebody finally says "the carol service" is the funniest Christmas party game there is, and it costs nothing.
Christmas party games for large groups
Past about fifteen people, anything that goes round a circle collapses: it takes forty minutes and you lose the room by person six. These indoor Christmas party games for large groups run in teams or in parallel instead.
13. The hat game. Team charades against a clock. Splits a big room into teams so nobody performs alone in front of everyone.
14. Team Christmas quiz. Five rounds, mixed difficulty, one written answer sheet per team. The most reliable way to occupy forty people at once, and the age range stops being a problem because different rounds suit different people.
15. Pass the parcel with forfeits. Layers of wrapping, a silly instruction between each. Works with any number and any age, and the anticipation does the work.
16. Find someone who. A list of festive statements, everyone circulates collecting names. This is the only game on the list that reliably makes strangers talk to each other, which is why it belongs at big parties.
17. Christmas Pictionary, teams. One person draws, their team guesses, other teams heckle. Needs paper and nothing else.
Christmas games for all ages
For the gathering where a six year old and a grandparent are in the same room. Nothing here favours either.
18. Reindeer ring toss. Antler headband, hoops, gentle chaos. Works because adults find it funnier than children do.
19. Stack the presents. Build the tallest tower of wrapped boxes before it falls. Two minutes, no skill, universally understood.
20. Snowball toss. Rolled-up socks into a bucket, teams, escalating distance. Costs nothing and can be set up in an existing living room without moving furniture.
Games to play at a Christmas party with two or three people
Most lists forget that plenty of Christmases are quiet. Song intros work head to head. Word karaoke works with two, one singing and one judging, then swap. Contact needs three. Two truths and a lie is fine with two and better with three.
How to actually run them
The games matter less than the order and the timing, and almost every failed Christmas party failed on one of these.
Go early. The instinct is to save games until after the meal when everyone has "loosened up", but a room that has settled into groups will not come back out. The gap between arriving and eating is the real opportunity.
Start with the easiest one. Whatever you begin with sets the ceiling for how silly the evening is allowed to get. Festive categories or song intros first, the sillier things later.
Assign the turns. "Who wants to go first?" is how a game dies. Games that hand out turns are much kinder to nervous relatives, because the fear lives in the choosing, not the doing.
Let people watch. Say out loud, once, that watching is a completely fine way to join in. People who feel free to leave usually stay.
Stop while it is still going well. Two games people wish had gone on longer beat five that outstayed their welcome.
For the year-round versions of most of these, see party games for adults. If the party is a work one, the constraints are different enough to need their own list: office Christmas party games covers hierarchy, Secret Santa and hybrid teams.
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