Here are 20 Christmas games for family parties, kids, grown-ups and big groups, each with short rules you can read out loud. Six of them have a free tool on this site, like a charades deck with a timer and a bingo card maker. Use the finder to match a game to your group and supplies.
Updated by the Frugal Santa elves
Pick your group size and youngest player. Every game below has short rules on this page or a free tool on its own page.
All 20 games
No game fits every filter. Try a bigger age or group range.
These games have their own page with something to play: a deck, a card maker, a quiz, a story to read or a name draw.
Secret Santa generatorDraw names online, then send each person a private link.
Secret Santa questionnaireFill in your favorites and share a card with your Secret Santa.
White elephant rulesThe rules, the steals, and a free host to run your gift swap.
Right left Christmas gameThree pass-the-gift stories, with every LEFT and RIGHT lit up.
Christmas charades166 charades cards with a timer, team scores and a print sheet.
Christmas bingoMake up to 60 different bingo cards, then call the game.
Christmas trivia125 Christmas trivia questions, movie quizzes and 25 fun facts.
Christmas jokes184 clean jokes, 25 riddles and a drumroll joke machine.
Elf name generatorFind your Christmas elf name and your job in Santa's workshop.The best family party games work for a five-year-old and a grandparent at the same table, take a minute to explain and need little or nothing from the store. Start with Christmas bingo: picture cards let young kids play next to grown-ups, and the caller on this site draws the squares for you. Christmas charades comes next, with easy cards for kids and harder movie titles for adults in the same deck. Then pick one game that gets people out of their seats laughing, such as Who’s Santa?, Name That Christmas Tune or the plastic wrap ball, which hides small prizes inside layers of wrap. Close with a calm one, like the right left game, where everyone passes a wrapped gift while someone reads a story aloud. Mix sitting games with moving ones, keep each round under 15 minutes, and let the youngest player go first so nobody waits too long.
Before the party, wrap small prizes and candy into a big ball of plastic wrap, adding a prize every few layers. Players sit in a circle. The first player puts on oven mitts and unwraps while the player next to them rolls two dice. When the roller gets doubles, the ball and the mitts move to them. Players keep whatever falls out.
Put candy canes in the middle, one fewer than the number of players. Deal four cards each. The dealer draws from the deck and passes one card to the left, and everyone keeps passing one card on, chasing four of a kind. Whoever gets it quietly takes a cane, and then everyone grabs. The player left without one takes a letter of C-A-N-E. Spell it and you are out.
Everyone writes three to five Christmas words or names on slips and drops them in a bowl. Split into two teams. Round one, describe the word without saying it. Round two, act it out with no words. Round three, give one word only. Each turn lasts a minute, and every slip guessed is a point. Put all the slips back between rounds.
Hand every guest a clothespin to clip on when they arrive, and name a banned word, such as “Christmas” or “Santa.” Anyone who catches another guest saying it takes that guest’s clothespin. Whoever has the most clothespins at the end of the party wins. It is the baby shower game Don’t Say Baby, with a holiday word.
Sit in a circle. One player, the Seeker Elf, leaves the room while the group picks a secret Santa. The Seeker Elf comes back and stands in the middle. Santa winks at players one at a time, and anyone who gets a wink calls out “Ho! Ho! Ho!” The round ends when the Seeker Elf names Santa. It is a holiday version of an old winking game.
The host plays the first few seconds of a Christmas song, or hums it. The first player or team to name the song scores a point. For grown-ups, hum only. For kids, use songs from their favorite Christmas movies. Ten songs make a quick round.
Each team picks one player to be the snowman. When the timer starts, the others wrap the snowman in toilet paper from the neck down, so the face stays free. When time runs out, a grown-up judges which team made the best snowman. A scarf, a hat and a paper carrot nose make a good finish.
Fill a clear jar with wrapped candy and count it as you go. Guests write their name and a guess on a slip and drop it in a box. At the end of the party, the closest guess wins the jar. If two guesses tie, draw one of them from a hat.
Minute to Win It games are quick challenges against a one-minute clock, using things you already have at home. Six that suit Christmas: Candy Cane Hook ’Em (hook canes into a bowl with a cane held in your mouth), Cookie Face (move a cookie from your forehead to your mouth with no hands), Jingle in the Trunk (shake bells out of a tissue box tied to your waist), the Christmas Tree Stack (build a tree from 10 green cups, then stack it down again), Snow Shovel (move pom pom snow between bowls with a spoon in your mouth) and the Jingle Bell Race (blow a bell across the table through a straw). With six or fewer guests, give each player a turn and score everyone who finishes. With a bigger crowd, run heats of three to five players at once and give a bonus point to whoever finishes first.
Pile wrapped candy canes on the table with a bowl nearby. Each player holds one cane in their mouth by the straight end, curve facing out, and keeps their hands behind their back. They hook canes from the pile and drop them into the bowl. Whoever has the most canes in the bowl after one minute wins.
Tilt your head back and set a cookie on your forehead. Using only your face (eyebrows, nose, cheeks), work it down into your mouth. No hands. If it falls, start again with a new cookie. Everyone who gets a cookie into their mouth before the minute ends scores.
Put a handful of jingle bells in an empty tissue box and tie the box around the player’s waist, so it sits at the back with the opening down. Players shake, wiggle and jump, with no hands, until every bell falls out. It sounds as good as it looks.
Start with 10 cups in one stack. Build a tree with four cups on the bottom row, then three, two and one at the top, which uses all 10. Then stack them back into one pile before the minute ends. If the tree falls, rebuild it.
Fill one bowl with 15 white pom poms and set an empty bowl beside it. The player holds a plastic spoon in their mouth and moves every pom pom into the empty bowl, no hands. Little kids can hold the spoon in their hand instead.
Tape a start line and a finish line across a table. Each player sets a large jingle bell on the start line and blows it over the finish line through a paper straw, with no hands. Race two players side by side, or score everyone who crosses in under a minute.
Grown-ups like games with a little strategy, a little stealing and room for jokes. A white elephant gift swap is the classic: everyone brings one wrapped gift, and on each turn a player opens a new present or steals one that is already open. Salad Bowl is a strong second. Everyone writes Christmas words on slips of paper, and two teams play three rounds with the same slips: describe it, act it out, then give a one-word clue. Candy Cane Spoons turns the card game Spoons into a race for candy canes, and Don’t Say Christmas runs all evening, as guests take clothespins from anyone who says the banned word. For a quieter table, play Christmas trivia with the movie and song rounds. Pick the grown-up cards in the charades deck for long titles like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and give winners small prizes they will use, such as good chocolate or the last slice of pie.
Hosting a swap? Read the white elephant rules, or draw names with the Secret Santa generator.
Easy Christmas games for kids have one rule you can say in a sentence, short turns and something to hold. For ages four to six, try Jingle in the Trunk, Name That Christmas Tune with songs they know, picture bingo with chocolate chips as markers, and the snowman wrap race, where a team wraps one player in toilet paper until they look like a snowman. From about five, kids can act out the easy charades cards, such as building a snowman or Frosty the Snowman, and from seven they can play Candy Cane Spoons and Who’s Santa? A candy jar guess works for every age: fill a clear jar, let each child write or draw a guess, and the closest guess wins. Keep prizes small, so every child takes something home, and give the youngest a head start in races. Most of these games need no reading, so a mixed group of ages can play together.
Want a special guest between rounds? Santa can join on a live video call to hear each child’s wishes. Read how a call with Santa works: after the call, every wish comes back with prices from several stores, lowest first. Calls cost $1 a minute.
Big groups need games where everyone plays at once, or where teams take turns quickly. Christmas bingo handles any crowd: print one card per guest, or send the phone link so nobody needs paper, and let the caller draw while you host. Teams are the other answer. Split the room into two to four teams for charades, Salad Bowl or the snowman wrap race, and keep the score where everyone can see it. Don’t Say Christmas and a candy jar guess run quietly in the background all evening, so latecomers can join in. For a gift exchange, a white elephant swap or the right left game keeps 20 or more people in the same story. Choose one person to host and read the rules out loud once, plainly. With more than about 30 guests, use a microphone or a speaker, so the caller and the storyteller are heard at the back of the room.
Run the night from your phone: the bingo caller, the charades deck and the right left stories all work on one screen.
For a two-hour party, plan four or five games and expect to play three. Start with something that lets latecomers join, like a candy jar guess or Don’t Say Christmas, and save the loudest game for the middle.
Charades, bingo on phones, trivia, Who’s Santa?, Name That Christmas Tune, Salad Bowl and elf name tags. Pick “Nothing to buy” in the finder to see them all.
Small, wrapped and quick to hand out: candy canes, hot cocoa packets, fuzzy socks, a mini ornament, or the right to pick the next movie. Keep spares for ties.
Yes. Charades, trivia, Name That Christmas Tune and bingo all work on a video call. For bingo, send each player the phone link so their card is on their own screen.
Yes. Santa is an AI video character you can call live, so a child can tell him their wishes between rounds, or the winner of the last game can talk to him first. Calls cost $1 a minute.
Yes. The finder on this page, the charades deck, the bingo card maker and caller, the trivia quiz and the right left stories are free, with no sign-up.
Live videoA live video call with Santa for kids and grown-ups, between rounds or as the grand prize. Tell him your wishes, then see each one priced across stores, lowest first. $1 a minute.
Call SantaChristmas charades166 charades cards with a timer, team scores and a print sheet.Christmas bingoMake up to 60 different bingo cards, then call the game.White elephant rulesThe rules, the steals, and a free host to run your gift swap.Secret Santa generatorDraw names online, then send each person a private link.