15 Easy Christmas Family Game Ideas

It can be hard to come up with new ways to entertain the troops, can’t it?

Sometimes you have the energy to get into the kitchen and cook up a storm.  Sometimes you turn the house into an art studio and give David Hockney a run for his money.

And, sometimes you just need a quick win – an easy activity that requires minimal effort, minimal (or ideally no) expense, but still gives you a few minutes of fun and entertainment for the littlies.

Well, don’t worry, we’re here to help!  Here’s 15 easy Christmas family game ideas to keep the kids (big & small) busy and happy!  

They’re all super simple to set up and cost virtually nothing but are guaranteed to keep you in the Christmas spirit and smiles on faces.  And we’ve included free printables where you need them too.  Time for some family fun!

Use our printable list of festive characters below for a few rounds of Christmas Charades.

Spread The Word!

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Let’s sprinkle Christmas cheer far and wide!

Do you know the Legend of the Christmas Pickle? One of the most endearing and unusual festive traditions around! Read more about it here; it’s inspired our Ornament Hunt idea!

Select an ornament (preferably a robust one!) from your tree. Then take turns to reposition it whilst the others step out of the room. First to find it wins!

We would strongly recommend that you make this a hunt for the eyes only, as people rummaging repeatedly through the tree is a recipe for festive tears!

Use our free printable below, or create your own supersize Rudolph face for this festive twist to the all-time children’s party favourite.

Cover eyes with Santa hats or thick festive ribbon before turning three times on the spot and then trying to position Rudolph’s nose correctly with blue-tac.

A variation on the traditional card game of spoons; instead of removing a spoon as sneakily as you can from the central pile, try the game with candy canes and aim to avoid spelling out C-A-N-D-Y.

For more on how to play spoons, click here.

Draw out a Christmas Tree on the largest piece of card you can find (perhaps unfold a packaging box and draw on that?).

Using either beanbags if you have them, or non-bouncy balls (or even some actual non-breakable Christmas tree decorations if you’re feeling really brave!), take turns throwing them from a start line to add the decorations to your tree.

Different points are gained for ornaments in different zones!

If you’d like to go the full hog and make your own festive bean bags to enjoy playing this game again and again, Positively Splendid has all the details.

You’ll need a bumper bag of mixed colour gift bows for this game.

Everyone picks a colour and is given an equal number of bows of that colour. Over the course of the afternoon or evening, everyone then needs to stick as many of their bows on others, undetected. The most prolific bow colour at the end of the night wins!

If you’d prefer not to be wasteful with bows, simply play this game after Christmas day and save the bows on parcels received.

A really simple game for those times when you really need as minimal effort as possible! 

One person starts with a Christmassy word. The next then has to say a word starting with the last letter of the word before. And so on and so forth.

HOLLY –> YULELOG –> GRINCH –> HOT CHOCOLATE –> ELF

Your turn next…!

Another really easy classic Christmas family game idea!

Someone thinks of a Christmas character. The rest of the group then ask questions to guess who they are? The snag is that the person answering can only reply with ‘yes’ or ‘no’! Will you guess the answer before the twenty questions run out?!

You’ll need some non-breakable cups and small balls. Ideally use some little sleigh bells to add a proper jingle to proceedings(!), but otherwise try scrunching up some white paper into tight balls and have a snowball toss instead!

Layout a set of ten plastic or paper cups in a triangle (10-pin) formation. Use an umbrella or string of fairy lights to create a starting line. Take turns to try and get as many sleigh bells into the cups as you can. You can allocate different points for different cups if you wish.

Playground Park Bench have the full lowdown on creating a gorgeous long-lasting board for repeat play of this game. We think as long as you pop something heavy into the base of each cup to keep it upright as you play, you could set up a quick version of the game pretty easily!

Ever popular and seriously easy to set up, a treasure hunt is always a winner for a family activity. For our festive twist, we recommend hiding candy canes or chocolate coins around the home. Just be sure not to put any coins next to the radiator!

Take an empty stocking and fill it with 3-5 items. Others then have to guess what the objects are by touch alone. Strictly no peeking!

Christmas Pictionary – another classic!

Take turns to draw out clues for your songs for others to guess. Either come up with your own list of songs or use our free printable suggestions below.