25 Festive Christmas Party Games for Adults

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3. Find the Guest

Good fit for: Icebreakers · Office Christmas parties

Who at your Christmas party can name twelve Christmas songs? And who drives a silver car?

Find the Guest is a mingling game where players look for people who match the descriptions on their game sheets.

Hand out the lists and have guests move around the gathering, asking questions and writing down the names of people who match each statement. To prevent the players just writing down names without mingling, you could have a rule that the “matches” are the ones who do the writing.

What You Need

• Plain Christmas cookies
• Frosting, sprinkles, and other edible decorations
• Customer Order cards
• Surprise Customer Amendment cards
• A timer

How to Play

Give each player or team a few cookies and an assortment of decorating supplies. Prepare several customer orders with specific requirements. For example:

The Snow Queen’s Winter Banquet
The Snow Queen wants an elegant Christmas tree cookie decorated with white and silver.

The Village Mayor’s Christmas Party
The mayor has ordered an ornament-shaped cookie that somehow represents his beloved pet reindeer.

Players begin decorating according to their orders.

Halfway through, announce a Surprise Customer Amendment. Each customer has suddenly requested an additional change.

Perhaps the Snow Queen now insists that her entirely white Christmas tree must include a red accent that is not a bow or a bauble.

The decorators must find a way to satisfy both the original and the amendment requests without starting over.

When time is up, everyone presents their finished cookies. Judge the creations on how well they fulfilled the original orders and how cleverly they handled the unexpected amendments.

5. Santa, Cookie, Elf, Candy, Snowman

Good fit for: Card games · Small groups · Fast reflexes

Santa, Cookie, Elf, Candy, Snowman is the Christmas version of the popular Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza card game. This is one of those games that moves considerably faster than my reflexes seem to allow. We’ve played it as a family, and while all three of our daughters beat me by quite a margin, I’m still faster than my husband. 😉

Players take turns flipping cards while saying the five words in order: Santa, Cookie, Elf, Candy, Snowman. When the card matches the spoken word, everyone races to slap the pile. The last player to react must collect the cards. Special action cards add another layer of unpredictability.

You can find the Santa, Cookie, Elf, Candy, Snowman card game here.

6. Christmas Would You Rather

Good fit for: Conversation games · Around the table · Guests who enjoy a light-hearted debate

Christmas Would You Rather can lead to some debates, hopefully not serious, over completely absurd choices.

Take turns asking Christmas-themed Would You Rather questions. Everyone chooses between two options, and you can invite a few people to explain their answers.

Would You Rather…

• Be friends with Jack Frost or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?
• Eat cereal with eggnog or candy cane-flavored bacon?
• Have Christmas tree tinsel for hair or fingernails that light up like Christmas lights?
• Receive many small Christmas presents or one big present?
• Only be able to eat candy canes or gingerbread cookies?
• Have pointy ears like an elf or a glowing red nose like Rudolph?

There’s no scoring. Just choose a side and see whether anyone can convince you to change your mind.

If you have been sitting around  a while, get everyone to stand and line up. Read a question, those who go with the first choice step to the left, the second choice, step to the right.

7. Christmas Carol Pictionary

Good fit for: Drawing games · Teams · Guests who can laugh at themselves

Even someone who knows every Christmas carol might struggle to draw the title convincingly. In the Christmas Carol Pictionary, teammates have to recognize the song from the artist’s illustration.

How to Play

1. Write Christmas carol titles on slips of paper and place them in a bowl.
2. Divide players into teams.
3. One player draws a title and has 60 seconds to illustrate the song while their teammates try to guess it. They can make as many guesses as they like during that minute. The artist cannot speak or use letters or numbers.
4. If the drawing team doesn’t guess correctly before time runs out, the opposing team gets one guess based on the finished drawing. If they’re correct, they steal the point. Otherwise, neither team scores.
5. Alternate between teams, choosing a different artist for each round.

Include well-known songs such as Jingle Bells and Silent Night, along with a few trickier choices.

The team with the most points wins.

8. Christmas Mischief: The Photo Challenge

Good fit for: Photo challenges · Individuals or teams · Guests with a flair for drama

Something suspicious has been happening around Christmas, and your guests have been recruited to document the evidence. Unlike a traditional photo scavenger hunt, this challenge asks players to invent the incidents themselves.

How to Play

1. Divide guests into teams or let them play individually.
2. Give each player or team two or three different Christmas Mischief Challenges, making sure no one receives the same assignments.
3. Using people, props, and decorations available at the party, players stage and photograph their assigned scenes.

Here are a few challenge ideas:

• The Cookie Thief: Photograph convincing evidence that someone has been stealing Christmas cookies. Make sure there’s a suspect.
• The Gift Peeker: Catch someone secretly investigating a Christmas present.
• The Missing Reindeer: Create photographic evidence that one of Santa’s reindeer has escaped and is hiding at the party.
• The Naughty List: Photograph the moment someone discovers they’ve landed on Santa’s naughty list.
• The Elf’s Escape: Capture an elf attempting to sneak away from Christmas duties.
• The Christmas Tree Incident: Photograph the aftermath of something suspicious happening to the Christmas tree.
• Santa’s Emergency Landing: Create evidence that Santa made an unexpected landing at the party.
• The Missing Christmas Dessert: Photograph the scene of a mysterious dessert disappearance.
• The Caroling Disaster: Capture evidence that a Christmas caroling performance went terribly wrong.

Give everyone time to stage their scenes and take their photographs.

Then collect the pictures and arrange them into a Christmas Mischief Slideshow. Gather everyone to watch it together. Because each player or team received different assignments, nobody knows what the others have been creating until the pictures appear.

There are no points or winners. The slideshow is the highlight, and everyone gets to enjoy the results of each other’s imagination. You’ll also have a delightful collection of Christmas photographs to remember the gathering by.

9. Guess What’s in the Stocking

Good fit for: Guessing games · Arriving guests · A moment of curiosity

I like having a game that guests can play as they arrive at a Christmas party.

Guess What’s in the Stocking works well for that, since each person can investigate the contents without the game needing to be reset.

What You Need

• A Christmas stocking
• An assortment of small objects
• Paper and pens

How to Play

1. Fill a Christmas stocking with various objects, keeping the contents a secret.
2. Let each guest feel the stocking to figure out what’s inside.
3. Players write down their guesses.
4. Once everyone has played, reveal the objects.

The person with the most correct guesses wins.

10. The North Pole Parcel Department

Good fit for: Wrapping competitions · Small teams · Resourceful, creative minds

The North Pole Parcel Department has received some peculiar wrapping orders. Apparently, ordinary Christmas packages are no longer acceptable.

In this challenge, teams must turn everyday objects into presents that resemble something entirely different.

How to Play

Divide players into teams and give each team an object to wrap, along with a Special Wrapping Order describing what the finished package must resemble.

For example:

• A whisk → A Christmas stocking
• A hardcover book → A Christmas tree
• A pair of slippers → A gingerbread house
• A rolling pin → A reindeer

1. Give each team an assortment of supplies, such as wrapping paper, tissue paper, ribbon, tape, and a few cardboard scraps. 
2. Set a timer for 10 minutes.
3. Teams must completely conceal their objects while transforming the packages into the requested designs.
4. When time is up, everyone presents their creations.
5. Optional: Judge the finished parcels on how recognizable the requested designs are and how creatively the teams worked with their original objects.

11. How Merry Is Your Christmas?

Good fit for: Christmas quizzes · Coworkers or friends · Scrooges and Holly Holidays

Are you a Holly Holiday? Or is your Christmas enthusiasm a bit more reserved?

How Merry Is Your Christmas? is a printable party game filled with statements about Christmas traditions and habits.

Do you own matching family Christmas pajamas? That’s one of the things that might reveal how enthusiastically you’ve embraced the season.

Give each player a game sheet and have them mark the statements that apply to them. Compare the completed sheets to find out who has the merriest Christmas habits.

You can find How Merry Is Your Christmas? in my printable Christmas game sets, featured below.

Printable Christmas Party Games

If you’d like a collection of printable games ready for your gathering, I’ve created two coordinated Christmas designs.

Both include ten games, such as Find the Guest, How Merry Is Your Christmas?, Name the Christmas Song, and Christmas Movie Charades.

Red Truck Christmas Party Games
A cheerful gnome in a red truck brings a playful Christmas look to this collection of ten printable games.

Gingerbread Christmas Party Games
The same ten games in a gingerbread design, with two additional scavenger hunt printables included.

Both collections are downloadable PDFs you can print at home.

12. Saran Wrap Game

Good fit for: Unwrapping games · Around the table · Prize-loving partygoers

A giant ball of plastic wrap conceals an assortment of treats and prizes. The challenge is uncovering as many as possible before your turn ends.

What You Need

• Plastic wrap
• Small prizes, such as candy, gift cards, or other treats
• A timer
• Oven mitts (optional)

How to Play

• Begin with a prize in the center and wrap several layers of plastic wrap around it.
• Add another prize and continue wrapping, hiding more surprises between the layers until you have a large ball.

When it’s time to play:

1. Give the first player the wrapped prize ball and set a timer for 30 seconds.
2. The player unwraps as quickly as possible, he gets to keep any prizes he uncovers.
3. When the timer runs out, pass the ball to the next player.
4. Continue until all the prizes have been discovered.

For an extra challenge, have players wear oven mitts while unwrapping.

13. Trim the Tree: A Christmas Tree with a Tale

Good fit for: Team competitions · Larger groups · Guests happy to be a bit silly

In this decorating competition, the Christmas tree is one of your team members. But this isn’t an ordinary tree. It has a story to tell, and the team must use decorations to show what happened to it.

What You Need

• Tinsel, garlands, bows, and other lightweight Christmas decorations
• Christmas Tree Predicament cards
• A timer

How to Play

• Divide players into teams and have each team choose one person to be its Christmas tree.
• Give every team an assortment of decorating supplies. Then have each team draw a Christmas Tree Predicament card.

Here are a few possibilities:

• The Christmas Tree That Survived a Snowstorm: Apparently, it was quite a blizzard.
• The Christmas Tree Decorated by an Overenthusiastic Elf: This elf has absolutely no sense of restraint.
• The Christmas Tree After a Visit from a Mischievous Cat: Things haven’t gone quite as planned.
• The Christmas Tree That Decorated Itself: With somewhat questionable results.
• The Christmas Tree with Two Personalities: One side is perfectly elegant and traditional. The other has been decorated by some very enthusiastic friends with completely different ideas.

1. Set a timer for five minutes. Teams must decorate their Christmas trees to show what happened in their assigned stories.
2. When time is up, it’s time for the Christmas Tree Parade.
3. Each team reveals its predicament and presents its creation. Let everyone vote for the tree with the most imaginative interpretation of its story.

I’d really like to see the tree a cat has paid a visit to.

14. Christmas Who Am I

Good fit for: Guessing games · Mingling guests

Rudolph, the Grinch, a nutcracker, or even Home Alone. You could be any of them, but only the other guests will know.

In Christmas Who Am I, players ask yes-or-no questions to discover their secret identities.

How to Play

1. Write Christmas-related characters, objects, movies, and songs on sticky notes or small cards.
2. Give each player a secret identity without letting them see what it is.
3. You can stick the notes to their foreheads, but I don’t blame you if you don’t want to walk around with a sticky note on your face. Instead, write the identities on cards and attach them to the backs of players’ shirts with clothespins.
4. Players mingle and ask each other yes-or-no questions.

For example:

• Am I a Christmas character?
• Can you find me at the North Pole?
• Am I something people watch at Christmas?

Players continue until they’ve correctly guessed who or what they are.

15. Name That Christmas Carol

Good fit for: Music games · Teams or individuals · Christmas music lovers

Name That Christmas Carol tests how quickly players can recognize holiday songs from just a few seconds of music.

How to Play

1. Prepare a playlist of Christmas carols, mixing well-known favorites with a few trickier selections.
2. Play a short portion of each song and have players guess the title. Award a point for each correct answer.

For another variation, stop the music in the middle of a verse and challenge players to sing or say the next few words.

16. Pass the Candy Cane: North Pole Emergencies

Good fit for: Improvisation games · Seated groups · Quick-thinking, imaginative guests

The North Pole has urgent problems, and apparently the only available experts are your Christmas party guests. This variation of Christmas Hot Potato replaces elimination with some rather unusual problem-solving.

How to Play

1. Have everyone sit in a circle and give one player a large candy cane to pass around.
2. Play Christmas music while players pass the candy cane from person to person.
3. When the music stops, whoever is holding it must solve a North Pole Emergency.
4. Read an emergency aloud and give the player 20 seconds to suggest a solution.

Here are a few possibilities:

• Sleigh Trouble: Santa’s sleigh has been replaced with a golf cart. How will you complete Christmas deliveries?
• Reindeer Rebellion: The reindeer are demanding Christmas Eve off. What’s your negotiation strategy?
• The Cookie Catastrophe: Someone accidentally shipped Mrs.Claus’s Christmas cookies to the South Pole. How will you explain this?
• The Missing Nice List: Santa has lost the Nice List, and Christmas Eve is tomorrow. How will you decide who gets presents?
• An Elf-Sized Problem: All the elves have suddenly grown to seven feet tall. How will they continue working in their tiny workshop?

Once the player offers a solution, start the music again and continue passing the candy cane.

You can play without elimination, allowing players to solve more than one emergency. Or, for a one-turn-per-player version, eliminate each player after they’ve offered their solution. Continue until only one player remains, then give that person the final North Pole emergency.

Personally, I might prefer the elimination version. Once I’ve saved Christmas from one disaster, I’d be quite happy to retire from North Pole duty.

17. White Elephant Gift Exchange

Good fit for: Gift exchanges · Friends or coworkers · Guests who enjoy surprises and friendly rivalry

A White Elephant Gift Exchange can become quite competitive once guests start stealing presents from one another. For a playful Christmas twist, have each person attach a mysterious clue to their wrapped gift. The clue should hint at what’s inside without giving too much away.

For example:

• “Your mornings may never be the same.”
• “A surprisingly useful companion.”
• “May cause arguments over who gets to keep it.”

How to Play

Ask everyone to bring a wrapped gift within an agreed price range. For this version, each person also writes a clue about the gift on a tag.

1. Place all the wrapped presents together and have players draw numbers to determine the playing order.
2. The first player chooses a gift and opens it.
3. Each following player can either select an unopened present or steal a gift that someone has already opened.
4. Anyone whose gift is stolen gets another turn to choose or steal.
5. Continue until everyone has a gift, following your agreed rules for how many times a present can be stolen.

You can also give your gift exchange a theme. I’ve gathered 16 White Elephant Gift Exchange Themes for Adults if you’d like to take that approach.

18. Gingerbread Man (Christmas Word Guess)

Good fit for: Word-guessing games · Small groups or teams

In this Christmas version of Hangman, every wrong guess brings a gingerbread man closer to being fully decorated. Unfortunately, that’s not particularly good news for the players.

What You Need

• Paper or a whiteboard
• Pen or marker
• Christmas words and phrases

How to Play

• Choose someone to host the game.
• The host thinks of a Christmas-related word or phrase, such as mistletoe or gingerbread house, and draws a blank line for each letter.
• Players take turns guessing letters. Correct guesses are filled in wherever they appear in the word or phrase.
• For each incorrect guess, the host adds another detail to the gingerbread man in this order:

1. Gingerbread man outline
2. Eyes
3. Mouth
4. First button
5. Second button
6. Third button
7. Bow tie
8. Icing on the boots
9. Icing on the mittens

Players must guess the word before the gingerbread man is fully decorated. Otherwise, the host wins that round.

For another Christmas variation, try my free Christmas Tree Word Guess printable, where each incorrect guess adds an ornament to the tree.

19. Ornament Spoon Relay Race

Good fit for: Relay games · Active groups · Plenty of cheering and suspense

Apparently, the Christmas ornament delivery service has switched to spoons. The task sounds manageable until everyone starts racing.

What You Need

• Shatterproof Christmas ornaments
• A spoon for each team
• A basket or container for each team

How to Play

1. Divide players into teams and have them line up at one end of the room.
2. Place an equal number of ornaments for each team at the opposite end.
3. Give the first player on each team a spoon.
4. When the race begins, each player goes to collect an ornament, balances it on the spoon, and carries it back without using the other hand to steady it.
5. If an ornament falls, the player must pick it up and return to the collecting point before trying again.
6. Once the ornament is delivered to the team’s basket, the player passes the spoon to the next teammate.

The first team to deliver all its ornaments wins.

For more short, active Christmas competitions, take a look at my 24 Christmas Minute to Win It Games for Adults.

20. Last Christmas

Good fit for: Guessing games · Friends or coworkers · Guests who enjoy sharing stories

How well do you really know the people at your Christmas party?

Last Christmas is a fill-in-the-blank guessing game where players anonymously share Christmas-related experiences and try to identify who wrote each response.

How to Play

1. Give everyone one or more prompt cards to complete. Players fill in the blanks without revealing their answers to anyone else.
2. Collect the completed cards in a bowl or Santa hat, mix them up, and read them aloud one at a time.
3. After each response, everyone guesses who wrote it. Once the guesses are in, reveal the author.

You might want to remind guests to disguise their handwriting, especially if someone in the group has a particularly recognizable style.

The Last Christmas card game provides ready-made prompts for this activity.

21. Christmas Charades — Christmas Mishaps

Good fit for: Acting games · Teams · Guests who don’t mind being silly

Some charades clues need only a gesture. Others require the actor to convey a whole Christmas disaster without a word.

This version of Christmas Charades includes traditional holiday movies, songs, and characters, along with a few unfortunate situations to act out.

How to Play

1. Write Christmas-themed words, phrases, and situations on slips of paper and place them in a bowl.
2. Divide players into teams. One player draws a slip and acts out the clue without speaking, while teammates try to guess the answer.
3. Give each player 60 seconds to perform. A correct guess earns the team one point.
4. If the team doesn’t guess correctly before time runs out, the opposing team gets one guess based on the finished drawing. If they’re correct, they steal the point. Otherwise, neither team scores.
5. Alternate between teams, choosing a different actor for each round.

Along with traditional Christmas charades, include some Christmas Mishaps:

• Santa Stuck in the Chimney: Santa discovers that the chimney is considerably narrower than expected.
• The Uncooperative Present: An elf tries to wrap a present that refuses to stay wrapped.
• Reindeer on Ice: One of Santa’s reindeer attempts to learn ice skating.
• The Tangled Christmas Lights: Someone tries to untangle a hopeless mess of Christmas lights.
• The Runaway Gingerbread Man: A gingerbread man makes a desperate escape from the bakery.

22. Christmas 20 Questions

Good fit for: Guessing games · Seated groups · Detective wannabes

Is it something you’d find on a Christmas tree? Can you eat it? Does Santa use it?

Christmas 20 Questions challenges players to identify a secret Christmas object by asking questions that can only be answered with yes or no.

How to Play

1. One player chooses a Christmas-related object, character, or place, such as a nutcracker, a gingerbread house, or the North Pole.
2. The other players take turns asking yes-or-no questions, with a total of 20 questions to figure out the answer.
3. If they identify it within 20 questions, they win the round. Otherwise, the player who chose the mystery item wins.

For a more challenging round, choose something less obvious than a Christmas tree or Santa Claus.

23. Christmas Never Have I Ever

Good fit for: Conversation games · Friends or family · Moments of playful confessions

Some Christmas habits are easier to admit than others. This version of Never Have I Ever brings a few of them out into the open.

How to Play

1. Everyone starts by holding up ten fingers.
2. One player reads a Christmas-themed “Never Have I Ever” statement. Anyone who has done what the statement describes puts down one finger.
3. Continue taking turns reading statements. The last person with fingers still raised wins.

Here are a few prompts to get the game started:

• Never have I ever secretly eaten the cookies left for Santa.
• Never have I ever practiced looking surprised before opening a Christmas present.
• Never have I ever reused the same Christmas gift bag for three years in a row.
• Never have I ever forgotten where I hid someone’s Christmas present.
• Never have I ever peeked inside a wrapped gift.
• Never have I ever bought a Christmas gift for someone and decided to keep it myself.
• Never have I ever pretended to like a Christmas food I actually couldn’t stand.
• Never have I ever fallen asleep during a Christmas gathering.

When someone puts down a finger for something particularly unexpected, you might want to hear the story behind it.

24. Guess the Number of Ornaments

Good fit for: Observation games · Arriving guests · Low-pressure competition

Just how observant are your Christmas party guests?

1. For this guessing game, decorate a room with a known number of ornaments. I like the idea of tucking a few among the decorations where guests might not notice them at first.
2. Let everyone know which area to count and whether ornaments on the Christmas tree are included.
3. Give each guest a slip of paper to write down an estimate. At the end of the gathering, reveal the actual number.

The person with the closest guess wins.

25. Guess the Christmas Movie Quote

Good fit for: Movie guessing games · Teams or individuals · Christmas movie enthusiasts

Some Christmas movie quotes need only a few words before someone calls out the title. Others are harder to place, even when you recognize the line.

How to Play

Give each player a list of Christmas movie quotes, or read them aloud and have everyone write down their answers. Award one point for each correctly identified movie. The player or team with the most points wins.

I’ve prepared a free printable with 25 Christmas movie quotes and an answer key.

Putting Together Your Christmas Game Lineup

With 25 games to choose from, it’s helpful to have a few combinations already picked out. Here are three lineups for different kinds of gatherings.

Christmas with Family and Teenagers — Four Games

• Christmas Confessions — Share Christmas experiences and try to uncover the invented ones.
• Candy Cane Spoons — Add a fast-paced card competition around the table.
• Trim the Tree: A Christmas Tree with a Tale — Turn willing family members into some highly unusual Christmas trees.
• Christmas Mischief: The Photo Challenge — Finish with a slideshow of everyone’s photographic Christmas adventures.

This combination moves from storytelling and competition to creative challenges, with the slideshow giving everyone something to enjoy together afterward.

Office Christmas Party — Three Games

• Find the Guest — Start with an icebreaker that encourages coworkers to mingle.
• How Merry Is Your Christmas? — Discover everyone’s Christmas habits and traditions.
• Christmas Movie Quotes— Finish with a team competition based on holiday films.

These offer a mixture of getting acquainted, personal discoveries, and Christmas knowledge without requiring time-consuming preparations.

For more ideas beyond the games, take a look at my 23 Christmas Party Ideas for Work.

Christmas with a Creative Crowd — Three Games

• The Christmas Village Bakery Challenge — Decorate cookies while dealing with unexpected customer amendments.
• The North Pole Parcel Department — Transform ordinary objects into unusual Christmas packages.
• Christmas Charades: Christmas Mishaps — Finish with some comical holiday situations to act out.

This lineup gives imaginative guests a chance to invent, build, and perform, with three different kinds of creative challenges.

A Storybook Note

Thank you for spending time in Storybook Celebrations today. If you enjoy turning ordinary gatherings into stories worth remembering, I’d love to welcome you to Storybook Cottage as we create a beautiful home one small story at a time.

With warmth and a storybook sprinkle,
Tuula
The Storybook Cottage Grandma