Christmas can be a wonderful holiday, a time when family members come home for a family gathering. Sometimes, spouses and friends can accompany family members coming home for the holidays, and games provide a way to break the ice and a means for everyone to have fun. These games also help shy members of the family to join in the festivities. At Christmas, a special time of the year, games that involve the entire family help bring the family closer together.

Pass the Christmas Stocking

This is a great game because everyone can remain seated. A Christmas stocking with one or more surprises inside is passed around. Everyone feels the sock and tries to guess what’s inside. More than one item can be placed in the sock, adding to the excitement. Christmas gifts can be awarded when the family member guesses correctly.

Christmas Charades

Charades is a game that can be enjoyed by all members of the family. The game can be turned into a holiday game by narrowing the choices of the names that players act out, trying to get teammates to guess.

Gift Trading

For this game, a special set of gifts is purchased ahead of time so that people don’t feel cheated. The gifts do not be expensive, because the fun is in the exchanges. Everyone takes a turn at opening a gift. Family members need to be sitting in a circle for this game, because the next person in line has the choice of trading that person’s unopened gift for any gift that has already been opened. By the time the last person in line gets to choose, everyone may end up with a different gift than at the start.

Unwrapping Challenge

A variety of gloves, mittens and oven mitts is laid out on a table. Everyone in the family gets one challenge, in which another family member is challenged to open a gift while wearing the selected set of mitts or gloves.

Christmas Carol Challenge

For this game, family members are divided into teams. Each team takes a turn drawing a picture on a large piece of paper that is visible to all. The goal of this game is to get team members to recognize the picture and arrive at the name of the Christmas carol the artist is trying to convey. The first team to guess the carol correctly and sing it wins.