Best Christmas Party Games
Hey all,
Every Christmas Eve, my family hosts the dinner and events. For years my Mother has come up with some simple games to keep everyone entertained during the middle-later portion of the night.
She doesn't like anything too complicated. I was wondering if anyone has any simple party games which are fun with extended family around the holidays.
Thanks.
Definitely cards against humanity
I dunno how many people you have, but Cribbage with a group is actually a ton of fun. We would do groups of four with coworkers after work at a local pub. If we had too many people, we'd alternate groups each game.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/188530/my-favourite-things
This board game is great. It's a really fun twist on a trick taking game. You give the person next to you categories and they rank things from 1-6 and then you give them back and play the trick taking game. Its fun because you get to learn more about people whilst also messing about with questions like 'do I think comic book guy from the Simpsons is a higher number for dad than a spatular is for mum's favourite kitchen utensil..... Hmmm...
I just gotta ask, how did you come up with that question at this time? We're almost as far away from Christmas as one can be 😅
Lol, yea I had a similar thought when writing it.
My Mom who plans these games takes it seriously because she wants people to have a good time, but has a really difficult time finding something which she considers accessible enough for everyone while still imparting some kind of challenge. She usually defaults to trivia, but then thinks that it should be Christmas trivia. The problem therein is that after 30 or more years of doing this, it has become wildly stale as there is only so much Christmas trivia, and it is not very engaging at all.
Last year I came to her with about 5 different new game ideas, all but one was shot down for some reason or another. The one that did get through went really well, but I am still thinking of others things I could bring to her well in advance, as she needs to mull over the logistics of whether they would meet her criteria for an acceptable party game.
Jackbox. Each one has several party games, everybody can play on their phone, and it's lots of fun while being fairly simple.
Quick warning about Jackbox, older people may struggle. It's incredibly simple, nearly foolproof, but there's just a certain kind of old person who becomes completely toddler-esque useless around technology.
I still give the recommendation a +1 though. It's cracking fun.
Are they terrible people? Cards against humanity.
Telestrations is like telephone with drawing.
Digital like? Check out Jackbox games.
Essentially, all children games work - you can just make then hard, or raise the stakes to your taste
musical chairs (song plys, everyone dances, song stops - you have to grab nearest seat - for n players, start with n - 1 chairs, so someone is eliminated - now reduce the chair by 1 and repeat)
atlas - take places names - someone has to say a new place starting with last alphabet of last name.
antakshari (consider it as musical atlas - you start with a song - next song has to start with the last alphabet/sound of lst song)
these 2 can be played in teams, and instead of finishing game as soon as someone loses, you can have pre determined punishments (for example, they have to dance, with 1 leg in air, and a hand over their head)
passing the parcel - song plays - you pass the parcel - when song stops, the person with parcel gets the "gift/punishment" (punishment similar to above)
charades (or dumb charades) - you have to make someone else guess what you are acting/narrating out
I like using word association as a game. It's quick to learn, doesn't need any equipment, and it's no problem to join or leave the table whenever you like.
Try to get from some word (eg HOME) to some other word (eg SUMMIT) taking only small, obvious steps.
Each step should make a pair of terms that "obviously" fit together. They can fit together because they sound similar (HOME -> ROAM), or they are written similarly (HOME -> HOLE), or have an obviously-related meaning (HOME -> AWAY)... anything that makes sense to the group.
You can take turns around a circle. When it's your turn, you announce the next link. If anyone thinks the link isn't small enough or obvious enough, they can object and you'll need to pick a different link. Then it's the next person's turn.
You can play competitively if you like (the person to reach the target word wins) but it also works fine without announcing a winner.
My mom does this game where we have a bunch of random (and generally cheap crap) gifts and a some dice. We roll the dice and have to trade, steal, open or leave with the gift. The kids seem to enjoy it and we generally have a good time. The key is to have a decent gift and something crazy that is like 'where did you get this.' we recently introduced this to a friend group... There's not a legendary homemade necklace that looks like someone named groodle made it 2k years ago.