The holidays bring together friends, neighbours and family members to celebrate some of the most festive days of the year. Although celebrants often incorporate traditions they hold dear this time of year, downtime provides an opportunity to embrace new games and entertainment ideas as well.
The following are some fun games to play this holiday season that can help to break the ice and keep everyone laughing.
Reindeer Games
Everyone knows that Rudolph wanted to have fun and participate in “reindeer games,” but he was left on the sidelines. Inspired by the tune, everyone can participate in reindeer games at your home. These types of games can include tests of endurance and dexterity, like fruitcake-eating contests, running races or doing hurdle competitions in the yard.
Candy Cane Home Runs
Participants can see how well they can launch a marshmallow into the outfield by hitting it with a candy cane taking the place of the baseball bat. Each participant gets three swings. The person with the most home runs wins.
Guess the Gift
In this game, party hosts wrap up five oddly shaped gifts specifically for the game (the gifts may be oddly shaped or just the wrapping as a decoy). Players take turns trying to guess what is inside and mark down their answers on sheets. One by one the gifts are revealed. If anyone guesses the gift, it is given as a prize. If more than one person guesses a gift, come up with a fun way to break the tie, such as rock, paper, scissors or thumb wrestling.
Christmas Karaoke
Singing traditional carols and popular holiday tunes is not uncommon come December. In this competitive version of karaoke, singers have to keep on singing, even when the lyrics get turned off or covered to test their true knowledge of these songs.
Present Stackers
This requires keeping a collection of oddly shaped gifts at the ready. Game participants try to stack the presents as tall as they can without them toppling over.
Fishing for Fun
Hang strings on the straight ends of candy canes to fashion fishing poles, with the curved ends serving as the “hooks.” Participants try to “fish” smaller candy canes out of a bowl and see how many they can reel in.
The “No L” Game
The game referee has a list of a few categories (i.e., food, sports, colours, cars, etc.) and players are split into a few teams. When the category is called, the teams have to jot down as many words as they can pertaining to the category that do not have a letter “L” in them before a timer runs out.
These are just a few festive ways to have fun with friends or family members during holiday gatherings.