Every Christmas party has the same dead zone. Dinner’s done, everyone’s full, half the room is a little tipsy and the other half is checking their phones. Someone says “should we play something?” and nobody moves.
More mulled wine won’t fix it (okay, it won’t fix it alone). A game will, as long as the whole room can play at once and nobody has to stand up and perform on their own. Below are 15 Christmas party games that pass that test, sorted by who’s in the room, plus the one we’d build the whole night around.
In this guide, you’ll find:
- Which game fits your crowd, at a glance
- Music bingo with Christmas songs, the game to build the night around
- Christmas games for adults
- Office Christmas party games nobody dreads
- Games for big groups and for the whole family
Want to skip ahead? Make Christmas music bingo cards from our 40-song playlist and print them tonight.
Quick pick: the right Christmas party game for your crowd
| Game | Best for (people) | Prep |
|---|---|---|
| Music bingo with Christmas songs | Everyone, every age (up to 250) | 10 minutes online |
| Name that Christmas tune | Music fans, teams (6+) | A playlist |
| Finish the lyric | Adults after dinner (4+) | A playlist |
| White elephant | Friends, small offices (6 to 30) | One wrapped gift each |
| Christmas trivia | Office, mixed teams (8+) | Our 50 questions |
| Christmas movie charades | Friends, family (6 to 30) | Slips of paper |
| Paper plate Pictionary | Family, office (6+) | Paper plates, pens |
| Ugly sweater contest | Everyone (any size) | The sweaters |
| Wrap it with oven mitts | Office, family (4+) | Boxes, paper, tape, mitts |
| Candy cane hook | Kids, competitive adults (4+) | A bag of candy canes |
| Guess the baby photo | Office (10+) | Photos collected beforehand |
| Christmas feud | Big teams (10+) | A 5-question survey |
| Two truths and a lie, holiday edition | Small groups, new teams (4 to 12) | Nothing |
| Paper snowball fight | Office, kids (10+) | Scrap paper, pens |
| Naughty or nice | Adults (6+) | A list of statements |
1. Music bingo with Christmas songs: the one to build the night around
Bingo, but with songs instead of numbers. Everyone gets a card full of Christmas song titles, the host plays short clips, players mark what they hear, and the first to complete a line shouts “Bingo!”
Here’s why it beats everything else on this list for a main event:
- Everybody plays at the same time. No waiting for your turn, no standing alone in front of your boss.
- Every age knows the songs. Grandma has Bing Crosby, your teenage cousin has Sabrina Carpenter, and literally everyone has Mariah.
- It scales. The same game works for six people around a kitchen table or a party of about 200.
- It doubles as the soundtrack. When “Last Christmas” kicks in, people sing whether they’re winning or not.
How to set it up in about ten minutes:
- Pick the songs. Use our 40-song Christmas playlist (Mariah Carey, Wham!, Brenda Lee, Ariana Grande, Laufey, Sabrina Carpenter’s “A Nonsense Christmas”) or paste any public Spotify playlist of your own.
- Make the cards on our Christmas music bingo page. Pick the Ho Ho Ho look (cartoon Santa, reindeer and a brave gingerbread man) or Silent Night (ivory and gold, for a fancier table). Up to 10 printed cards are free; bigger groups pay once per game, no subscription.
- Print them, or play on phones. Phone games are paid, and players join with a QR code or a link. Handy for hybrid teams and video calls.
- Play 20 to 30 seconds per song. First a line, then a full card. Two rounds is the sweet spot for a party.
House rules that make it a party: a false “Bingo!” means you sing the next chorus solo. Two winners on the same song? Ten-second dance-off to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and the room picks the winner. Small prize for every line, the good stuff for the full card.
Running it for a crowd? The music bingo host guide covers the mic, the pacing and checking winners.
2. Name that Christmas tune
Play the first three seconds of a Christmas song. Teams write down the title. One point for the title, a bonus point for the artist. Easy round: the big hits. Evil round: only the intro of “Carol of the Bells” versus “Christmas Time Is Here.”
Twist: the hum round. One person per team hums a song with no words, the team guesses. It’s a great warm-up before bingo, because it uses the same playlist and gets everyone’s ears on.
3. Finish the lyric
The host stops the song mid-line. First team to sing the next line correctly gets the point. “Last Christmas, I gave you my…” is a gimme. “Driving Home for Christmas” verses are where friendships end.
Best for: adults after dessert, when people are relaxed enough to sing badly in public.
4. White elephant (with stealing)
The gift swap where the real present is the chaos. Everyone brings one wrapped gift and draws a number, and on your turn you either open a new gift or steal one that’s already been opened. Set the budget and the steal cap out loud before the first gift is opened, and split into groups past about 30 people.
The full rules, the house rules that stop the fights and five ways to mix it up (dice, the left right Christmas story, music bingo deciding who steals last) are in our white elephant rules guide.
5. Christmas trivia
Teams of four to six and rounds of ten questions. We wrote the whole thing for you: 50 Christmas quiz questions with answers, from movies and music to a UK vs US round.
6. Christmas movie charades
Write Christmas movie titles on slips of paper: Elf, Home Alone, The Grinch, Love Actually, Die Hard (argue about that one later). One player acts, their team guesses, 60 seconds on the clock.
Best for: friends and family up to about 30. Bigger than that, run two games side by side.
7. Paper plate Pictionary
Everyone holds a paper plate on top of their head and draws on it without looking, while the host calls out the scene step by step: “Draw a snowman. Give him a hat. Now a carrot nose. Now Santa’s sleigh behind him.” Then everyone shows their masterpiece. Best (or most cursed) drawing wins.
No talent required, which is exactly the point.
8. Ugly sweater contest
Announce it on the invite and people will try very hard. Make categories: ugliest, most homemade, most lights, “most likely to be a cry for help.” Vote by applause at the end of the night, so everyone keeps the sweater on until then.
9. Wrap it with oven mitts
Pairs. One person wears oven mitts and has 60 seconds to wrap a box; the other can only give instructions. Best-wrapped gift wins. Messier version for bigger groups: each team wraps one teammate as a present, bow included.
10. Candy cane hook
Each player holds a candy cane in their mouth by the straight end and uses the hook to pick up other candy canes from the table. No hands. Most candy canes in 60 seconds wins. Kids love it. Adults get way more competitive than they’ll ever admit.
11. Guess the baby photo
A week before, collect one childhood photo from everyone who wants to play. Number them on a wall or a slide, hand out answer sheets and let people guess who’s who. The reveal of the boss in a bowl cut is worth the whole party.
12. Christmas feud (“survey says”)
Send a five-question survey to the team a week before: “Name something you find in a stocking,” “Name the worst Christmas present,” and so on. The top answers become the board. Two teams face off, the host reads “Survey says…” and the room loses it when the top answer is “socks.”
Best for: big teams. Everybody answered the survey, so everybody’s in the game.
13. Two truths and a lie, holiday edition
Each person shares three holiday facts about themselves, one of them fake. The group guesses the lie. “I once got a hamster for Christmas and it escaped into the tree.” Truth or lie?
It’s a solid opener for small groups or a team that doesn’t know each other yet. Keep it light: no one has to share anything personal.
14. Paper snowball fight
Everyone writes their best Christmas memory (or worst Christmas present) on a sheet of paper, scrunches it into a ball, and the room gets a 30-second snowball fight. Then everyone picks up one snowball, reads it out and the room guesses who wrote it.
Loud, fast, totally safe for work.
15. Naughty or nice
The host reads statements like “I’ve regifted a present” or “I’ve opened a gift early and wrapped it back up.” Naughty people go to one side of the room, nice people to the other. The naughty side takes a forfeit, or a sip if your crowd is that kind of crowd.
Best for: adults who know each other well enough to be honest.
Christmas games for adults: house rules for grown-ups
Most of the games above work for adults as they are. A few house rules make them feel like a proper party instead of a kids’ table:
- Forfeits beat forced drinking. Sing the next chorus, wear the reindeer antlers until the next round, give a toast to the host. Funnier, and nobody’s out by 10 p.m.
- Every winner gets a drink. Mulled wine, a shot, a fancy hot chocolate. Always have an alcohol-free version on offer.
- Save the real prize for last. A bottle for the music bingo full card, the golden ugly-sweater crown for the contest.
- Let people play in pairs. Shy guests join, and the pair argues about every song, which is half the fun.
The best adult picks from the list: finish the lyric, naughty or nice, white elephant with stealing and music bingo with forfeits.
Office Christmas party games nobody dreads
A work party has rules a family party doesn’t. The games that work at the office have three things in common: people play in teams, nobody performs alone unless they volunteer, and there’s a clear end.
- One main game, two short ones. Music bingo or trivia as the main event, a quick warm-up, and white elephant or the baby photos as the laugh.
- Mix departments at each table. Meeting people outside your team is half the point of the night.
- Make sitting out normal. Watching, holding the drinks or keeping score are all fine. Nobody should get called out for skipping.
- Keep alcohol out of the scoring. Drink prizes are fine, drinking-as-a-rule isn’t.
- Not everyone celebrates Christmas. Call them holiday party games, mix winter songs and party hits into the playlist, and nobody feels left out.
- Think about remote people. Phone bingo lets the people on the video call play the same card game as the room.
For card counts, a host script and a sound check for the room, read music bingo for company events. Want more team games for the rest of the year? See company offsite games.
Example run sheet for a two-hour office Christmas party
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 6:00 pm | Arrivals and drinks. Ugly sweater check-in, cards and pens on tables. |
| 6:20 pm | Warm-up: name that Christmas tune, 10 minutes. |
| 6:30 pm | Food. |
| 7:15 pm | Music bingo, round 1: one line. Small prizes. |
| 7:35 pm | White elephant, or the baby photo reveal for bigger teams. |
| 8:05 pm | Music bingo, round 2: full card. Big prize and ugly sweater winner. |
| 8:30 pm | Dance floor. Games over, nobody has to do anything else. |
Christmas party games for large groups
Once you’re past 30 or 40 people, a lot of party games break. Charades, white elephant and two truths and a lie all depend on taking turns, and nobody wants to wait 40 minutes for theirs.
What still works with a big room:
- Music bingo. One card per person (up to 250 different cards) or one per table, and everyone plays every song.
- Trivia and Christmas feud, in teams of five or six.
- Paper snowball fight. The bigger the room, the better the chaos.
- Ugly sweater contest, judged by applause.
For 100 people or more, get a microphone and a helper to check winning cards. Waiting in silence while someone counts squares kills the energy fast.
Christmas games for the whole family
When the table goes from a five-year-old to a grandparent, pick games where age doesn’t decide who wins:
- Music bingo with the cartoon Ho Ho Ho cards. Pair the little ones with a grandparent on one card.
- Paper plate Pictionary. The adults’ drawings are no better than the kids’.
- Candy cane hook and charades for the kids who can’t sit still.
- Name that Christmas tune, with kids against adults.
Keep rounds short and make sure every kid wins something small at some point. You know which one will cry.
Still going after Boxing Day? Here are our New Year’s Eve games, from a year-in-review quiz to music bingo right before the countdown.
Ready to give the night a main event? Make your Christmas music bingo cards: pick the playlist, choose Ho Ho Ho or Silent Night and print. All that’s left is the ugly sweater.
