Are you on the hunt for ways to entertain the kids during the festive season? With plenty of holiday parties in the works, having some fun Christmas party games for kids up your sleeve is a good idea. And, let’s face it, a party is always more fun with games – no matter what age the players!
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The annual family Christmas party takes some serious planning with food, decorations and entertainment to take into account. We’ve got you sorted with some fun Christmas party games for kids, especially designed for your younger partygoers (as well as the young at heart) to spread a little Christmas magic!
Choose one or more of these festive favourites to sleigh your next Christmas party…!
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Fun Christmas Party Games for Kids
Pin the Nose on the Snowman
Image: Living Well Mom
In the style of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, create a snowman version like this one from Living Well Mom.
Use white paper to make the outline of a snowman. Provide eyes, a mouth, and a black top hat for your snowman. Cut orange-coloured “carrot” noses – one for each person playing – and add a glue dot, double-sided tape or blu-tack to the back. Blindfold each player in turn and let them attempt to attach their carrot nose to the face of the snowman. Whoever is closest wins!
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Christmas Treasure Hunt
Hide candy canes or other Christmas themed sweets and let the kids look for them. Prior to the hunt, let the kids decorate paper bags with felt tips and Christmas stickers. They can use these bags to take their party treats home.
Make it harder with a certain colour theme for each person – that way, they may find a red sweet but have to leave it behind because their assigned colour is blue!
Christmas Charades
One of our favourite Christmas party games for kids is to take all the fun of regular charades and give it a Christmas spin! Write lots of Christmas activities and characters on small pieces of paper, fold them up and put into a large bowl. Divide your players into two (or more) teams and then each team takes turns having someone come up to act out their card.
Christmas activities could include decorating the tree, wrapping or unwrapping presents, looking for Santa, building toys at the North Pole, carving the turkey, pulling a Christmas cracker, carol singing, etc. Characters could include Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa, Frosty the Snowman, an Elf on the Shelf, the Grinch, etc.
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What’s in the Stocking?
This is a really fun guessing game!
Fill a traditional Christmas stocking (or a pillowcase) with small toys and Christmas items, for example, a candy cane, a bauble, bell, small car, soft toy or pinecone.
Let the kids feel the stocking and try to identify the contents. The player with the most correct guesses is the winner.
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Santa Says
A variation on the classic Simon Says game. Whoever is leading the game could be dressed up as Santa for a really themed game! Then give directions like:
- Santa says, touch your knees
- Santa says, hop on one leg
- Santa says, run on the spot
Then give a command without saying, “Santa says…” like just “Spin around on the spot”. If one player follows the command, they are out and the next to be Santa. Continue until all the kids have had a turn.
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Christmas Tree Toss
Image: Red Ted Art
Create your own Christmas fairground with this fun Christmas tree toss game from Red Ted Art.
Using some large pieces of cardboard, tinsel and some paint, you can recreate this tree toss game for Christmas parties, school fairs of just for fun in the garden! Players throw (unbreakable) baubles, mini bean bags, ping pong balls or something similar and try to get them into the holes. See who scores the most!
How About Some Festive Fun?
Get into the festive spirit and download our FREE Christmas word search – perfect for rainy days or on-the-go fun! Can you find them all?
Stack the Gifts
All you need for this fun game is several empty wrapped packages of various sizes – shoe boxes, cereal boxes, etc. Try stacking them yourself to make sure the challenge is difficult but possible. You can play this game in teams or pairs if you wish. The goal is to see how many gifts the players can stack before the pile topples. The highest pile with the most gifts wins this game.
Candy Cane Hook ‘Em
Image: Happiness is Homemade
Kids will love this candy cane hook ’em game from Happiness is Homemade, and all you need is a pile of candy canes!
Make a candy cane mountain on the table and give each player one each. With the long end of the candy cane in their mouth and their hands out of action behind their backs, each player has to use the hook of their candy cane to pick up as many others as they can and carry to their ‘safe zone’. The player with the most candy canes at the end of a set time (depending on the age of the children) is the winner!
Advent Calendar Treasure Hunt
Count down to Christmas with this exciting Advent treasure hunt. You can write messages on 24 cards hinting to treats scattered throughout your house. Play in one go or stretch out the fun in the lead up to the big day!
Ornament Pop!
Image: Carnival Savers
This Ornament Pop game from Carnival Savers is a great Christmas party game for older kids or adults.
Use a large piece of cardboard or craft paper and paint a Christmas tree. Use small inflated balloons and tape them to the tree as ‘decorations’ on your tree.
Each player gets three balloon darts and has to try and pop the balloons! You could award the winner based on the number of balloons popped – or, alternatively, you could hide a winning ticket in one of the balloons and whoever pops that balloon is the winner.
Christmas Balloon Tennis Race
Even the youngest kids will love this game, although it is challenging enough for pre-teens. Blow up red and green balloons to use as the ball. Attach the end of a lolly stick or skewer to Christmas themed paper plates to create a handle, and these become your bats or racquets.
Each player has to hit an inflated balloon with their plate, attempting to cross a designated finish line. You can use masking tape on the floor for the finish line. This makes an excellent team game for a larger group, or part of a Christmas-themed relay race.
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Snowman Drawing Game
This snowman drawing game from Housing a Forest looks so fun and would be perfect for a crowd of mixed ages!
Give each person a paper plate and a marker. They have to place the plate on their heads and attempt to draw a snowman without looking – it’s a lot harder than it seems!
Christmas Musical Chair Games
We have three versions of this timeless favourite that kids will love. Base your choice upon the age of the children, as well as the time you have for preparation.
- Traditional Musical Chairs. Simply add Christmas music and play the traditional game with one less chair than the number of players. Each time the music stops, the player without a seat is out and another chair is removed until you have a winner.
- Pass the Parcel. While Christmas music is playing, a wrapped gift is passed around the circle. When the music stops, whoever is left holding the package unwraps a layer until the last person reveals a prize.
- Christmas Ornaments. Cut the outline of ornament shapes (stars, circles, diamonds, etc) from bright coloured paper and place them around the room on the floor (tape them in place if needed). Have the children walk around while the music is playing, then when the music stops, each must stand on an ornament cut out. Whoever cannot find one to stand on is out. Remove a shape each turn until you have one winner.
Snow Blowing
Image: All For the Boys
This simple Christmas party game, a version of the one we found on All For the Boys, works for even the youngest children. All you need is a few cotton balls and a drinking straw for each player. Draw a finish line on a large piece of paper or tape one onto a tabletop. The goal is to move a cotton ball across the finish line first by blowing through the straw.
Older children will also enjoy a pair/team version, where you keep points for the winner of each round. The team with the most points wins.
Don’t Be Stuck For Ideas!
No more last-minute panic – just download our FREE Elf on the Shelf Cheat Sheet for plenty of fun ideas!
Memory Game
A fun version of the kids’ favourite Memory game, use individually wrapped Christmas chocolates. Put stickers on the bottom and write matching number pairs with a sharpie or pen on the stickers. Kids turn over the items and try to remember their location so they can make matched pairs. The number of chocolates used is dependent on the age and maturity of the kids playing.
Chase the Present
Have each child bring toy (a new one or one they are happy to part with) wrapped up as a Christmas gift. After the children sit in a circle, put all the gifts into the centre. Randomly choose someone to start the game by picking out a present for themselves. They unwrap the gift, and the next child has the option of taking the gift already opened or choose one from the other wrapped presents, and so on.
The fun comes when there is one toy everyone wants – and one nobody wants. Everyone ends up a gift, although not necessarily one they want!
Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?
Image: Come Together Kids
We love this fun Christmas party game from Come Together Kids (which would also work well as a Frozen party game).
For this you will need some props like hats and scarves and plenty of toilet rolls. This is a great pair, team or relay game which involves setting a time limit to make one of your team into a human snowman!
One person is the ‘builder’ and one is the snowman. Wrap the chosen person in loo roll, leaving no part visible and then add all the necessary accessories. You will need a judge for the winner, so be prepared for some family rivalry! The winner could be based on the best snowman or the fastest, depending on the age of the kids.
Snow Shovelling Race
Shovelling “snow” indoors may beat being out in the cold, but it’s surprisingly hard to control cotton balls with a spoon. Race a friend to see who can shovel the cotton balls out of the bowl the fastest – one at a time!
You can make this harder for older children and adults by using chopsticks, making them use their non-dominant hand, or even blindfolded and guided by their teammates.
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Snowball Relay Race
If you have more than two players, you can develop the snow shovelling race above into a whole family affair.
The goal in this fun relay race is to move snowballs (cotton balls) from one side of the room to another with a plastic spoon. Divide the players into two teams. The first person on each team uses a plastic spoon to transfer cotton balls from a full bucket on one side of the room to an empty bucket on the other side. Then they must run back to their team’s line and hand the spoon to the next person on their team to keep going. If a cotton ball falls off the spoon and onto the floor, it must be left on the floor. At the end of the game, count the cotton balls in the buckets. The team with the most snowballs wins the race.
Christmas String Maze
Image: How Does She
Have you ever tried a Christmas maze? It’s hilarious fun, although does need some space to play.
Using small balls of wool in several different colours (one colour for each player), attach one end of the first colour to a pencil and then string the wool around the room, going under, over, around, and through furniture like this version from How Does She. Cut the string and begin again with another pencil. Repeat this process until you have one string for each child.
When the children arrive, hand them a pencil, and instruct them to wind the string up while following it. Fun and chaos is guaranteed!
Bauble Tossing
Stick ten plastic cups in a bowling pin triangle on a heavy piece of cardboard. Provide small plastic tree baubles (or other small items like candy) for kids to toss into the cups. Whoever gets the most baubles in the cup wins.
Make this harder for older children by letting them play in teams or pairs. Assign a different point allocation for each cup and then see who scores the most points at the end.
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Whichever game you choose you will be sure that plenty of fun is had by everyone and the party will really get everyone in the Christmas spirit!
What other Christmas party games for kids do your children enjoy? Leave a comment below and let us know – we’d love to hear from you!
About the Author: Emily Cooper
