Christmas Party Games: 29 Games for Family, Adults, the Office and Video Calls (With Word Lists)

By The Rondovo team · Published October 2, 2026 · Updated October 11, 2026 · 16 min read

The best Christmas party games need almost no kit and get everyone playing within a minute: charades with Christmas words, a gift swap where people can steal, Christmas Pictionary, a Most Likely To round about the people in the room, and bingo with small prizes to finish. Pick games by who is coming. Kids want to move, adults want to talk, office parties need games nobody can be embarrassed by, and video calls need games that work through a camera.

Below are 29 Christmas party games sorted by group, each with players, time, what you need and how to play. After that come the word lists we wrote for this page and a running order for a three hour party.

In short

• Family with kids: snowball spoon relay, toilet roll snowman, Christmas charades, stocking mystery.
• Adults: steal-a-gift swap, Most Likely To, Murder at the North Pole, fill in the blank.
• Office party: team quiz, mitten wrapping race, Christmas Tambola, Naughty or Nice spectrum.
• Video call: Christmas Pictionary online, Fetch It, Hum That Carol, film in three words.
• Large groups (30+): Find Someone Who, carol sing-off, Left Right gift pass.
• Plan: an easy game while people arrive, the loud games before food, a calmer one after, prizes last.

How to choose Christmas party games

Three questions settle it.

Who is the youngest and who is the oldest? A game has to work for both. Charades and bingo do. A drinking game does not.

How many people? Most games here work for 6 to 16. For more, play in teams: one answer per team, one screen per team.

How much do you want to prepare? Every game below can be set up in under ten minutes. The word lists further down mean you do not have to invent anything on the night.

Christmas party games for family with kids

1. Christmas charades

• Players: 4 to 20, in two teams
• Time: 15 to 30 minutes
• You need: slips of paper and a bowl, or a screen per team

One player acts out a Christmas word without speaking while their team guesses. One minute per turn, a point per correct word, then the other team goes. Use the charades list below. Little ones can act in pairs with a grown up.

On screens, Act It Out runs the timer and the score, and the other team types in and votes on the first word of your turn, so they can pick straight from the Christmas list below. It adds some fun cruelty.

2. Snowball spoon relay

• Players: 6 or more, in two teams
• Time: 10 minutes
• You need: cotton wool balls, two spoons, two bowls

Each team lines up. The first player carries a cotton wool "snowball" on a spoon to a bowl across the room, drops it in, runs back and hands over the spoon. If the snowball falls, go back to the start. First team to get every snowball in the bowl wins. Older kids carry the spoon in their mouth.

3. Toilet roll snowman

• Players: 6 or more, in teams of three
• Time: 5 minutes, plus judging
• You need: one toilet roll per team, a hat and scarf per team

Each team picks one person to be the snowman and has two minutes to wrap them from the knees up in toilet roll. Add the hat and scarf at the end. A grown up judges the best snowman, not the fastest. Keep the paper afterwards for crackers or the craft box.

4. Stocking mystery

• Players: 3 to 12
• Time: 10 minutes
• You need: a few stockings or thick socks, ten small objects

Before the party, put one object in each stocking and tie the top: a bauble, a pine cone, a candy cane, a walnut, a whisk, a toy car. Players feel each stocking through the fabric and write down what they think is inside. Most right wins. Adults get trickier objects (a teabag, a cork, a hair clip).

5. Musical statues with carols

• Players: 5 to 30
• Time: 10 minutes
• You need: a speaker and a Christmas playlist

Everyone dances while the music plays. When it stops, freeze. Anyone who moves is out and becomes a judge. For kids under six, nobody is out: the wobbliest statue just does a funny pose.

6. Christmas Pictionary

• Players: 4 to 16
• Time: 20 minutes
• You need: paper and pens, or a TV and screens

One player draws a Christmas word, their team guesses, 60 seconds a turn, no letters or numbers. Use the Christmas Pictionary list below. Our online drawing games guide has the full rules for playing at home without a kit.

With a TV, Scrawl puts each drawing on the big screen while everyone guesses on their own. Its words are general rather than festive, so use the paper version if you want only Christmas words.

7. Face Up (forehead guessing)

• Players: 3 to 12
• Time: 10 minutes
• You need: sticky notes, or a screen

The guesser holds a word to their forehead where everyone else can see it. The room shouts clues and the guesser has a minute to get as many as they can. Christmas words work brilliantly here because everyone knows them: "Rudolph", "mince pie", "Boxing Day".

Face Up shows the word on the guesser's screen and counts correct guesses for each player. Its decks (animals, food, jobs, films and shows) are not Christmas themed, so it makes a good break from the festive words rather than a replacement.

Christmas party games for adults

8. Steal-a-gift swap

• Players: 6 to 30
• Time: 30 to 45 minutes
• You need: one wrapped gift per person, a price limit, numbered slips

Also called a white elephant gift exchange or Yankee swap. Everyone brings one wrapped gift and draws a number. Player 1 opens a gift from the pile. Each next player either opens a new gift or steals one already opened. Anyone who is robbed opens a new gift or steals from someone else. House rules that keep it moving: a gift can be stolen twice at most, and you cannot steal straight back.

9. Most Likely To: Christmas edition

• Players: 4 to 16
• Time: 10 to 15 minutes
• You need: the prompt list below, or a screen each

Read a prompt like "Who is most likely to fall asleep before the film ends?" Everyone points at someone on three. Laugh, then move on. It works best when people know each other a bit.

Most Likely To keeps the votes hidden until the reveal and gives points for reading the room, which makes it a proper game rather than a roast. Its prompts are family friendly everyday ones; read the Christmas list below between rounds.

10. Two truths and a lie, Christmas edition

• Players: 3 to 12
• Time: 15 minutes
• You need: nothing, or a screen each

Each person tells three Christmas stories about themselves: two true, one made up. "I once got a single potato as a present." Everyone votes on the lie. A point for each correct guess and a point to the storyteller for everyone fooled. Our guide to two truths and a lie has more ideas and how to write a good lie. Two Truths on Rondovo runs it on screens.

11. Christmas fill in the blank

• Players: 3 to 12
• Time: 15 minutes
• You need: paper and pens, or screens

Someone reads a sentence with a blank ("The worst thing to find in a cracker is ___") and everyone writes an answer. Shuffle them, read them out, and vote on the funniest. Fill-In does this with anonymous answers on everyone's screens, so the shy players win just as often.

12. Forbidden words

• Players: 4 to 16, in two teams
• Time: 15 minutes
• You need: cards you write in advance, a timer

Describe a word to your team without saying it or a list of banned words. Make it festive: describe "turkey" without bird, Christmas, dinner, gobble or roast. The other team watches for slips. Hush deals ready made cards (everyday words, not festive ones) and lets the other team buzz you.

13. Murder at the North Pole

• Players: 6 to 16
• Time: 20 to 30 minutes
• You need: playing cards, or a screen each

A Christmas skin on Mafia. Secretly deal roles: two elves gone bad (the Mafia), one Santa (the detective) and the rest loyal elves. At night the bad elves pick a victim. By day the workshop argues and votes someone out. The workshop wins when the bad elves are all gone. Nightfall on Rondovo handles the night phase on screens so nobody has to be the narrator, and our how to play Mafia guide covers the rules.

14. Hum that carol

• Players: 4 to 20, in teams
• Time: 10 minutes
• You need: a list of carols and Christmas songs

One player hums a song with their mouth closed, no words. Their team has 30 seconds to name it. Harder than it sounds: half of all carols hum the same.

Christmas party games for the office

Office games should be easy to join, easy to sit out, and never about drinking or embarrassing anyone.

15. Christmas team quiz

• Players: 8 to 100, in teams of four to six
• Time: 30 to 45 minutes
• You need: a quizmaster, answer sheets, small prizes

Four rounds of ten: Christmas films, food from around the world, songs (give the year, name the song), and a round about the company itself. Teams swap sheets to mark. Mixing departments into teams does more for the room than any icebreaker.

16. Christmas Tambola

• Players: 2 to 100
• Time: 15 to 20 minutes
• You need: tickets and a caller, or a screen each

Tambola, also called housie, is a bingo variant that is a fixture of office and family parties in India. Each ticket has 15 numbers, and prizes go to the first valid claim for Early Five, a line, the corners and a full house. Several small prizes keep more people in the game.

Tambola calls the numbers and checks every claim, so nobody cheats on the full house. A room holds up to 16 screens, so bigger offices should play in pairs or small teams. There is also a classic Bingo where you build your own card before the calling starts.

17. Mitten wrapping race

• Players: 4 to 20, in pairs
• Time: 10 minutes
• You need: a box per pair, wrapping paper, tape, oven gloves or thick mittens

Each pair wraps a box while both wear oven gloves. One holds, one tapes. Best wrapped present after three minutes wins. It is very silly and everyone can watch.

18. Christmas jumper vote

• Players: everyone
• Time: 5 minutes
• You need: a show of hands or a quick poll

Anyone in a festive jumper lines up. The room votes in categories (most lights, most homemade, most likely to be sold back to a charity shop). Make taking part optional, and give a prize to every category.

19. Naughty or Nice spectrum

• Players: 4 to 16
• Time: 15 minutes
• You need: a line on a whiteboard, or a screen each

One person gets a secret point on a line from Naughty to Nice and gives a one word clue for it: "Regifting" sits somewhere in the middle. Everyone else guesses where on the line it falls. Closest guess scores. Other festive lines: Worst present to Best present, Cosy to Chaotic, Kids' Christmas to Grown-ups' Christmas.

Mindline is built on the same idea with its own ready made lines, and scores every guess by how close it lands.

20. Odd elf out

• Players: 4 to 12
• Time: 15 minutes
• You need: slips of paper

Everyone gets a slip with the same Christmas word, except one person whose word is close but different (most get "mince pie", one gets "Christmas pudding"). Each person says one word about theirs. Then the group votes on who had the different word. Rondovo's Odd One Out deals the words (from its own everyday list) and keeps score.

Christmas games to play online and on video calls

21. Christmas Pictionary on a call

• Players: 3 to 16
• Time: 20 minutes
• You need: a browser each

Draw and guess works well on a video call because the drawing is on everyone's screen, not on camera. skribbl.io lets you paste in your own custom words, so the Christmas list below goes straight in. Scrawl and Chain Sketch work on a call as well, with their own built in words: everyone joins with the four letter code and picks "Just this screen", so each person sees the drawing on their own device and nobody has to share their screen.

22. Fetch it

• Players: 3 to 30
• Time: 10 minutes
• You need: a host with a list

The host calls an item ("something red", "the oldest decoration you own", "something that plays music") and everyone has 30 seconds to bring it back to their camera. First back scores, and the best story about the oldest decoration gets a bonus.

23. Christmas film in three words

• Players: 3 to 20
• Time: 10 minutes
• You need: nothing

Each player describes a Christmas film in exactly three words, and the first to name it gets a point. "Boy. Burglars. Paint." Take turns. Adults can do it with Christmas songs too.

24. Two truths online

• Players: 3 to 12
• Time: 15 minutes
• You need: a screen each

Same as game 10, but voting on screens stops the people with their cameras on from winning by reading faces. Two Truths shows each set of statements to everyone, collects votes and reveals the lie.

25. Fill in the blank online

• Players: 3 to 12
• Time: 15 minutes
• You need: a screen each

Answers need to be anonymous for this to work on a call, otherwise everyone just votes for their friends. Fill-In shows the sentence, collects answers and hides the names until after the vote.

Christmas party games for large groups

26. Find someone who

• Players: 15 to 100
• Time: 15 minutes
• You need: a printed grid for each person, pens

A five by five grid of squares like "has been to a Christmas market", "can name all of Santa's reindeer", "still has their first tree decoration". People mingle and get a different name in each square. First full row wins; full card gets a bigger prize. It is the best way to start a party where half the room are strangers.

27. Carol sing-off

• Players: 10 to 100, in two to four teams
• Time: 10 minutes
• You need: a host

The host calls a word: "snow", "star", "bells". Teams take turns singing a line of a song containing that word. A team that cannot think of one in ten seconds is out of that round. Last team singing wins.

28. Left right gift pass

• Players: 8 to 40, sitting in a circle
• Time: 10 minutes
• You need: a few wrapped small gifts, a short story with lots of "left" and "right" in it

Hand gifts out around the circle. The host reads a story slowly, and every time they say "left" or "right", the gifts move one place that way. Whoever holds a gift when the story ends keeps it. Write your own story the night before (ours starts: "Santa left the workshop right on time, but turned left instead of right..."), or improvise one.

29. Christmas bingo for the whole room

• Players: 10 to 200
• Time: 20 minutes
• You need: printed cards and a caller, or screens shared by teams

Swap numbers for Christmas pictures and words (star, sleigh, gingerbread) so kids can play alongside adults. Use small prizes and lots of them. On Rondovo, a room takes up to 16 screens, so with a big group each table plays as one team on one screen.

Christmas word lists and prompts

We wrote all of these for this page. Print them, cut them up, or read them from your screen.

Christmas charades words

Easy (for kids and warm ups)

1. Building a snowman
2. Wrapping a present
3. Reindeer
4. Ice skating
5. Hanging a stocking
6. Snowball fight
7. Eating a candy cane
8. Opening a cracker
9. Elf
10. Decorating the tree
11. Sledging
12. Penguin
13. Ringing a bell
14. Making a snow angel
15. Hot chocolate

Harder (for teens and adults)

1. Getting tangled in fairy lights
2. Pretending to like a present
3. Falling asleep after dinner
4. Burning the roast potatoes
5. Carol singers at the door
6. Last minute shopping
7. Christmas jumper that is too small
8. Assembling a toy with no instructions
9. Kissing under the mistletoe
10. The office party photocopier
11. Regifting
12. Stuck in the chimney
13. Writing a letter to Santa
14. Queueing for the post office
15. Watching the same film every year

Most Likely To: Christmas prompts

Who is most likely to...

1. Start playing Christmas songs in November?
2. Open a present early and wrap it back up?
3. Fall asleep before the film ends?
4. Eat the chocolate from the advent calendar a week ahead?
5. Give a gift card and call it thoughtful?
6. Still be wrapping presents at midnight on Christmas Eve?
7. Cry at a Christmas advert?
8. Win the family board game and gloat until New Year?
9. Forget whose present is whose?
10. Get the lights tangled and blame someone else?
11. Wear a novelty jumper with real pride?
12. Leave the washing up "to soak"?
13. Buy themselves a present while shopping for others?
14. Know every word of every Christmas song?
15. Turn the gift swap into a hostage negotiation?
16. Take forty photos of the dinner before anyone eats?
17. Be the last one still awake on Christmas night?
18. Start a debate about the best Christmas film?
19. Eat the last mince pie and deny it?
20. Book next year's Christmas plans before this one is over?

Christmas Pictionary list

1. Snowman
2. Christmas tree
3. Santa's sleigh
4. Gingerbread house
5. Candy cane
6. Stocking
7. Chimney
8. Bauble
9. Wreath
10. Advent calendar
11. Mistletoe
12. Christmas pudding
13. Snow globe
14. Nativity
15. Fairy lights
16. North Pole
17. Cracker
18. Igloo
19. Turkey dinner
20. Boxing Day sales

Fill in the blank starters

1. The worst thing to find in your stocking is ___.
2. This year, Santa's elves went on strike because ___.
3. The real reason Rudolph's nose is red: ___.
4. My Christmas dinner was ruined by ___.
5. The new rule at our gift swap: no more ___.
6. Grandad's Christmas speech this year was mostly about ___.

Plan the night: a running order for a three hour Christmas party

A good party starts easy, peaks before food, slows after, and ends with prizes. Here is a plan for 10 to 16 people of mixed ages.

Tips that make it work:

• Name a host. One person keeps time and moves things on. Without one, the second game never starts.
• Prizes are small and many. Chocolate coins, a box of crackers. Winning is the point, not the prize.
• Stop a game while people still like it. Two rounds of a good game beats four of a tired one.
• Have a quiet corner. Some guests want to watch, and that is fine.

For a bigger crowd, see our party games for large groups guide, and for every other occasion, our main party games guide. Seeing the year out too? Our New Year's Eve games pick up where this leaves off.

Questions people ask

What are good Christmas party games for adults?

A steal-a-gift swap, Most Likely To with Christmas prompts, fill in the blank, Murder at the North Pole (Mafia with elves) and forbidden words all work well. They need little kit and get funnier as the evening goes on.

What Christmas games can you play online with family?

Christmas Pictionary in a browser, Fetch It, Christmas film in three words, and Two Truths all work on a video call. Pick games where everyone answers on their own screen, so nobody is stuck waiting to unmute.

What are good Christmas games for an office party?

Team quizzes, Tambola or bingo, a mitten wrapping race and the Naughty or Nice spectrum. Avoid drinking games and anything that puts one person on the spot unless they volunteer.

How many games do you need for a Christmas party?

For three hours, plan five or six games and expect to play four. Each game takes 10 to 30 minutes, and food and the gift swap take up most of the rest.

What Christmas games work for a large group?

Find Someone Who, a carol sing-off, a Left Right gift pass and bingo all scale to 50 or more. For screen games, put people in teams of two to four with one screen per team.

Make it easy on the night

Most of these games need a bowl and some paper. If you would rather have the timer, the score and the word lists handled, our Christmas favourites are Act It Out, Face Up and Tambola. Rondovo is free: the host opens a room, everyone joins at rondovo.com on their own device with the four letter code, and nobody signs up. A TV is optional (open rondovo.com/tv in its browser). Merry Christmas.

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