14 BEST CHRISTMAS PARTY GAMES FOR KIDS TO ENJOY

Here’s a list of 14 of the best Christmas party games for kids that will have them jumping for joy. From classic favourites to those with a modern twist, you’ll find great activities for children of all ages.

Christmas is an expensive time of year, so I’ve kept this list to games that either use stuff you already have or involve buying minimal props to set them up.

Some of the games come with free printables, which also helps keep costs down.

I’ve also included games that don’t take forever to plan and prepare, the only exception being games that are actually fun to put together with kids – or to get older kids and teens to craft, which in itself is another great way to keep them occupied and having fun!

There are party games for kids of all ages to enjoy, from toddlers to tweens and teens. Some will even keep grown-up kids thoroughly entertained too!

THE 14 BEST KIDS PARTY GAMES TO PLAY THIS CHRISTMAS

1. GIFT STACKING RELAY

A gift-stacking relay race is a great way to bring out everyone’s competitive side, and it can quite often also dissolve into giggles.

• Number of Players: 2+ divided into two teams
• What You Need To Play: Some empty boxes of different sizes (we all have those with the many online orders we make) and leftover wrapping paper
• Suitable Age Group: 3–6

How To Play:

1. Divide the players into two teams.
2. Set up the gifts in piles at one end of the party space.
3. Line up the two teams at the starting line at the other end of the space.
4. When the game starts, the first player from each team runs to their team’s pile of gifts and grabs one gift.
5. The player then runs back to their team’s starting line and sets the gift down.
6. Subsequent players are tagged as soon as a gift has been set down and stack the gift they retrieve on top of the previous gift.
7. This process continues until one team has stacked all of their gifts in a tower.
8. The first team to stack all their gifts wins the game.
9. If a tower of gifts falls down, the team must rebuild the tower.

2. JINGLE BELLS TOSS GAME

This game challenges kids to toss jingle bells into cups.

It’s also customisable to fit all age groups, as you can increase the difficulty level by spacing the cups further away.

• Number of Players: 3–10
• What You Need To Play: Plastic or paper cups and colourful jingle bells.
• Suitable Age Group: 3+

How To Play:

• Set up six to ten cups in a bowling pin formation at one end of a big table.
• Each player should take a turn to stand at the other end of the table and toss the jingle bells at the cups.
• Players should take turns doing this, with each individual getting three bells to toss per turn.
• Keep score of how many bells a player manages to get into the cups each time.
• The winner is the player who manages to get the most bells into the cups at the end of the game.

Quick Tip:

Play with coloured jingle bells to make the game look more fun. Double up the cups to weigh them down. Or you can use a hot glue gun to glue the cups to a large board.

4. SNOWMAN TOWER SLAM

Snowman Tower Slam is really easy to set up; in fact, it’s a good game to get the kids to prepare, which gives them an extra festive activity to keep them occupied!

• Number of Players: 3+
• What You Need To Play: White paper cups, construction paper, glue, and rolled-up socks or small soft balls.
• Suitable Age Group: 3–6

How To Play:

• Decorate the cups with snowman faces.
• Stack the cups in a tower.
• Roll up a bunch of socks (or you could use soft balls)
• Each player gets a turn throwing a rolled-up sock at the tower.
• The winner is the player who knocks over the largest number of snowmen.

Quick Tip:

Get the kids to wild with their imaginations and create cups with different themed faces, such as Santa or reindeer.

5. CHRISTMAS PUNCH BOARD

Punch board games recently went viral on TikTok, and it’s not surprising because they are hugely fun. The emphasis is more on taking part than competition.

There are several versions of the game. This is a Christmas version, and I love the idea in the video below of creating the punch board in the shape of a Christmas tree.

• Number of Players: 3+
• What You Need To Play: 15 paper cups, a thick board, red and green tissue paper, a plate to use as a template, rubber bands, small prizes, scissors, a pen and a ruler.
• Suitable Age Group: 4–10

Set up:

1. Use a ruler and pen to mark where you want the openings to be on the board. These should be evenly spaced and in the shape of a Christmas tree. Each hole should be big enough for a cup to sit snugly in, with just the top of the cup visible.
2. Smooth out 15 sheets of tissue paper and use the plate to create a circle template. Cut the circles of tissue paper out.
3. Place a small prize in each cup.
4. Take a sheet of tissue paper and secure it over the top of the cup with an elastic band.
5. Slot the cups into the holes in the board

How To Play:

1. To play the game, get each player to choose a cup to punch. They will punch through the tissue paper to reveal their prize.
2. Players take turns punching cups until all prizes have been claimed.

This video shows you exactly how to create a Christmas punch board.

6. SNOWBALL SCOOP CHALLENGE

The Snowball Scopp Challenge is both hugely challenging and hilarious to watch.

• Number of Players: 2+
• What You Need To Play: A large bowl, two large kitchen spoons, a big bag of cotton wool balls, two blindfolds, and a timer.
• Suitable Age Group: 8+

How To Play:

• Set the bowl on a table and scatter the cotton wool balls (snowballs) all over the table.
• Blindfold the first player and hand them the spoon.
• Set the timer for one minute and challenge them to scoop as many snowballs into the bowl as they can within the time limit.
• Continue until each player has had a turn. The winner is the player who scoops the most snowballs.
• The comedy element is that it is actually super hard to scoop cotton wool balls, but don’t tell anyone this up front!

This video shows just how funny it is watching someone try to carefully scoop up cotton wool balls.

7. CHRISTMAS BINGO

Bingo is a fantastic game that kids enjoy playing. With this in mind, I’ve created a set of Christmas Bingo cards as a free printable PDF you can download.

• Number of Players: 4+
• What You Need To Play: Bingo cards, printable callouts in a bowl, and bingo chips (you can use many things as a replacement, such as candy)
• Suitable Age Group: 4+

How To Play:

• Grab a set of my free printable Christmas Bingo cards.
• Print out the Christmas-themed bingo cards and give one to each player.
• Prepare the callouts, fold them, and place them into a bowl.
• Choose an adult to be the caller (the person who picks and calls out the bingo number or shapes).
• Give each player a bunch of your chosen bingo chips.
• The caller starts picking up random callouts, and all players should place a chip over the corresponding square.
• The winner is the first person who gets five chips in a row on their scorecard.

Related: 11 Brilliant free printable Christmas games for kids

8. PULL THE STRING CHALLENGE

Pull The String Challenges party game that has gone viral on TikTok.

• Number of Players: 2 – 8
• What You Need To Play: Some paper plates, a paper cup or small cardboard box, a ball of string, sticky tape, and a few small gifts of your choice.
• Suitable Age Group: 2+

Set up:

1. Cut a small hole in the top of the cup or box. The hole should be just big enough to easily fit all the strings through.
2. Set up enough plates for everyone to have at least one turn (there should be an even number of turns). Place a prize on each plate. The prizes can be a mix of lovely and not-so-lovely, depending on how much of a challenge you want to create.
3. Attach a string to each plate with sticky tape.
4. Thread the strings through the hole in the box or cup.
5. Make sure to mix the strings up so it isn’t easy to see which string is attached to which plate.

How To Play:

1. Each player takes a turn, pulling on a string to see what prize they get.
2. Once a player has pulled a string and claimed their prize, cut the string off so that it cannot be pulled again.
3. Continue until all prizes have been claimed.

This video shows a Pull The String Challenge in action.

9. CHRISTMAS CHARADES

Sometimes it’s good to break out a reliable classic party game and give it a festive flavour. Christmas charades, as you would imagine, involves kids acting out Christma-themed words or phrases.

• Number of Players: 2 or more
• What You Need To Play: A list of holiday-themed words or phrases, and a timer
• Age Suitability: 6+

How to Play:

1. Divide the players into two teams.
2. One player from the first team picks a word or phrase from the list and acts it out without speaking.
3. The rest of their team tries to guess what they’re acting out before the timer runs out.
4. If the team guesses correctly, they get a point. If not, the play moves to the other team.
5. Continue until everyone has had enough, or set a number of rounds and see which team has scored the most points.

Here’s a list of festive words and phrases you can use for Christmas charades:

1. Santa Claus
2. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
3. Christmas tree
4. Elf on the Shelf
5. Frosty the Snowman
6. Jingle Bells
7. The Nutcracker
8. Eating a candy cane
9. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
10. Ebenezer Scrooge
11. Having a snowball fight
12. Filling a Christmas stocking
13. Opening a Christmas gift
14. Kissing under the mistletoe
15. Making a Christmas wreath
16. Eating Christmas dinner
17. Home Alone
18. The Grinch
19. It’s a Wonderful Life
20. The Polar Express
21. The Nightmare Before Christmas
22. The Santa Clause
23. Bad Santa
24. Die Hard
25. Silent Night
26. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
27. The Twelve Days of Christmas
28. Santa Claus is Coming to Town
29. O Come, All Ye Faithful
30. Away in a Manger
31. The First Noel
32. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
33. Little Drummer Boy

10. FESTIVE COOKIE DECORATING COMPETITION

A Cookie Decorating Competition is a great game to play in the run-up to Christmas or during the Betwixtmas days.

• Number of Players: 2+
• What You Need To Play: Pre-baked cookies, a disposable tablecloth, batches of different coloured icing, and a fun selection of decorations and toppings.
• Suitable Age Group: 4+

How To Play:

• Prepare the cookies the night before and create a workstation.
• Provide all the decorating supplies, including chocolate chips, mini candy canes, gumdrops, sprinkles, etc.
• Come up with a batch of different awards (it is Christmas, after all, so everyone’s a winner!) For example, awards for the most creative, the cutest, and the most colourful.
• Serve festive hot chocolate for the kids to enjoy when their cookies are ready to eat.

11. CHOCOLATE COINS SCAVENGER HUNT

Ok, so this game doesn’t really need much explanation. It’s a riff on a classic scavenger hunt, using festive things for kids to find.

What’s great about this game is that you can adapt the difficulty of where you hide the coins depending on the kids’ age.

This is a great game for the post-Christmas meal lull when most adults want to sit and relax, but the kids still have bucketloads of energy to burn off.

• Number of Players: 2+
• What You Need To Play: A list of Christmas-themed things, the actual Christmas-themed things, and a timer.
• Suitable Age Group: 3+

How To Play:

• Write a list of Christmas-themed things for the kids to find. For example, a candy cane, a Santa hat, a Christmas bauble, a wreath, gold chocolate coins, a ‘Rudolph nose’ (red ball), mistletoe, holly, a star, a Christmas cracker, a pinecone…
• Hide all the things on the list.
• Hand out the list to all the participating kids to start solving clues and searching for all items.
• Kids can play individually or in teams.
• Set a timer (around 15 minutes is good if you’re playing the game at home)
• The team or player who ticks all missions off of the list wins. NB: In this version of the game, players must leave the items in situ rather than collecting them.

12. SANTA SAYS

As a Christmas-themed take on the classic game Simon Says, ‘Santa Says’ makes a wonderful game for both kids and adults alike to join in with.

• Number of Players: 3+
• What You Need To Play: Just a designated Santa and a Santa hat (or full outfit if you really want to!)
• Suitable Age Group: 4+

How To Play:

• Simon (or Santa, in this case) is the commander of the group.
• Depending on how Santa says the command, the group of kids will either obey or disobey it.
• Players must obey if the command starts with the sentence ‘Santa says’.
• If Santa says the command without first saying ‘Santa says’, the players must not obey.
• The goal is to eliminate players who incorrectly obey or disobey the command.
• The winner is the last remaining player.

13. INDOOR SNOWBALL CHALLENGE

The Indoor Snowball Challenge doesn’t actually involve real snowballs (you’ll be pleased to know!). Instead, cotton wool balls are substituted for snowballs. The aim of the game is to throw a ping-pong ball into the bowl without it being knocked off course by ‘snow balls’ being thrown by the competition.

• Number of Players: 4+
• What You Need To Play: A clear glass bowl, cotton wool balls, and ping-pong balls.
• Suitable Age Group: 4+

How To Play:

• Set the glass bowl on a table and then set a designated distance (age dependent) for players to stand to throw their ping pong balls.
• The first player has to bounce or toss ping-pong balls into the bowl.
• Meanwhile, the other players should try to knock the ping pong balls off course by throwing ‘snowballs’ at them.
• The player should get one ping pong ball in the fish bowl to win their round of the game.
• As an alternative, you can set a timer to see how many balls each player can get into the bowl in three minutes.

14. CANDY CANE CATCH

Although it can be challenging to get right, this game is one of the best games for a children’s Christmas party. It involves jeopardy and skill and can be really frustrating!!

• Number of Players: 2+
• What You Need To Play: Two chairs, a ribbon or tinsel, and some candy canes.
• Suitable Age Group: 4+

How To Play:

• Set the two chairs back to back with a suitable distance between them.
• Tie two stretches of ribbon from one chair to the other.
• Divide all players into two teams.
• Each player should stand over the chair and drop candy canes onto the ribbon.
• A player must get one candy cane to hang onto the ribbon and stay there to switch places with another team member.
• The team that gets the most candy canes to hang over the ribbon wins
• You can also have kids play this game against a timer and see who can get the highest score in a minute.

Here’s a useful video of the Candy Cane Catch game in action: