Creative Christmas Family Games?

Hi-

A fun game to play is to wrap a little something, like small box of cookies or maybe a low amount gift card or some little trinket in a medium sized or odd shaped box- wrap it up good- with lots of paper and tape. Sit everyone in a circle and each person rolls the dice whoever has the lowest number goes first. That person must ear a pair of oven mits and try to unwrap the gift all while you have a timer set for a minute or two- you decide. They cannot use the help of their mouth or anything else to get the gift unwrapped. When the timer goes off the gift goes to the person sitting to the right and the timer starts again. You keep this up until the gift is completely open- whoever opens it gets the gift. You can be creative and put it in a couple different boxes and then wrap it- make it as hard as you want. It is fun!
Hope that helps!

Jill

Human Bingo!
you make bingo sheets w/ statements like
"I speak another language"
" I have traveled to another country"
my favorite color is blue

things like that and everyone has to go around and find someone who matched to a square on their bingo sheet and put there name on the paper and the first one to get 5 on a row yells BINGO!
http://entertaining.about.com/od/miscgames/qt/humanbingo2...

Oh wow I have been working on just this...I did a jar with holiday colored candies I think I spent like $6 in total to which I will have everyone make a guess and see who's closes to the amount of pieces in it. I did a search on the internet for holiday terms to which I made little slips of paper to do a charades game. Then I took some of the holiday words and made a quick word scramble...but I think charades with holiday terms should last us most of the evening...lol! If ya do a search for home schooling holiday games there are alot of cute familyish ones out there...I hope this helps...if you like I could email you the word files??

Pictionary was always a hoot at our big family gatherings. Charades. Anything with everyone trying to interpret how the other people act or draw out things always gets a laugh.

Hi!

Don't forget about the fun and hilarity of musical chairs. You can play it a couple of times for the different age groups. We always do that at our family reunions, and it is a riot to watch the older people scurry about trying to jump in a chair. The children will have fun with it, too.

Merry Christmas!

C.

Our family did the same thing years ago. We would buy something for the little ones ( under 16) and then would draw a name for someone else. We put a cap on the gift of $100 but not under $75. It ended up being SO much cheaper than buying everyone cheapy useless $15-20 gifts. And we knew that we would get something cool. We talked about having a family website with info on who's house we were going to, the details of what to bring for dinner and a wish list of all the family members. It made it much easier to know what everyone actually wanted. Then we also had a white elephant gift exchange and we tried to make it really funny and have something stupid, like a Chia Pet get re-wrapped and brought each year in a different style wrapping. The gifts had to be under $20 and it was a TON of fun and laughter. The kids couldn't play because they had received so many gifts and they didn't understand when someone wanted to "steal" their gift. Pictionary is always fun.

Hello E.,

you can find a few board games at a thrift store. just make sure all the pieces are there before you buy them. a fun game in tri-bond. it has 3 things on a card and you have to guess what's the common bond between them. if you can get the one with pictures, much better yet! some of the cards have pictures like a tree, a car and an elephant... the answer is they all have a 'trunk'. have out a checkers game (can get those at the dollar store) connect 4, tic tac toe, etc. Good luck and Merry Christmas! ~C.~

I have seen a game called "Would You Rather...?" and heard that it is fun. The basic gist of it is that people are asked to make a choice between two (usually neither is something you would especially like) and explain why you chose that way. I'm thinking that the idea is to get others to agree with your decision... It sounds like an interesting way to get to know people's minds...

We usually play a game where the names of Christmas songs are put in a hat and someone pulls a name out of the hat and tries to draw a picture of the song while everyone else guesses.

Something else we do (might be a challenge with such a large group) is create a bunch of tags with the name of a person/place or thing that has to do with Christmas. As each person comes in they have a tag stuck to their back (they aren't allowed to know what it says). They have to try to figure out what their tag says by asking the other people their questions (or if they can't think of questions you can give them clues). YOu could do this with Christmas songs too I suppose.

Have fun!!

pin tail on reindeer or nose on rudolph
race to see how fast the elves can load the sleigh or move a stack of deer snacks, hay
speed of wraping a gift
scanger hunt of xmas items besur to have a reader for non readers, they can either help hunt or only read
Just take any kid game and put a Christ mas twist on it.Check the internet for ideas

Hello,
I can suggest if you are Christian since we are celebrating the birth of Jesus to go around the room, and have everyone write down at least one thing they are very grateful for. It is a nice way to thank God, and get to know everyone a little more intimately.
C.

Here's one we did one year and it was a lot of fun!! We called it "How well do you know your family?" We all wrote down something about ourselves that we thought no one in the family knew about. Something we've done before, a place we had been, something unique about ourselves etc.. Then we all put our papers in a hat and one person took out each paper and read it aloud and everyone had to write down who they thought wrote it. After all papers had been read, we re-read them and the person who wrote it let it be known. It was really funny and we all learned a lot about each other that we didn't know.

Hope you have a blessed time what ever you do!!
T.

one of my husbands favorite traditions in his family (that they no longer do) was the years every family member were assigned another member of the family(I think they drew out of a hat)/ Anyhow, they had to write a poem/song/ silly jingle about that person and why they appreciated them. Inevitably the funny and not-so-funny things about the previous year were remembered which was a fun way to relive the year... They did it on a smaller scale with just 5-8 family members and they drew the names at Thanksgiving, so people had enough time to prepare... But, maybe you could tailor it to your needs. The littlest ones could perhaps draw pictures of the member they get and "explain" them... Just a thought. Kudos to you for making family first and emphasizing relationship at the holidays!!!

Play hot potato-- pass omething (like a small stuffed animal) around the room and either randomly twist a bakery timer that will ding or have someone who is not looking stop and start music.. then whoever ends up with it has to.... say something. Either pick prewritten questions out of a hat (like say what you are thankful for or say your favorite memory from the past year or whatever) or have one question that everyone answers

Hi E.,

We generally celebrate with our best friends that have a huge family. Team charades are always fun because the teams can be formed evenly (older kids helping younger kids). Another FAVORITE that keeps us laughing is Apples to Apples. Everyone has fun and it has nothing to do with skill, so the chances of winning are even, no matter who you are...

Merry Christmas!

M.
www.squidoo.com/ifyourbabycouldtalk

Can we come to your house on Christmas? It sounds like so much fun!!!! We usually sit around waiting for it to be over, blah. You could get an easel and pad and play pictionary with teams. Its always fun to see how people draw out what's described to them and usually creates a lot of laughs. Merry Christmas