It’s Christmas, you’ve finished your dinner, eaten dessert, and unwrapped your gifts… Now what? If you and your loved ones are looking for something fun to do after the more traditional Christmas celebrations, why not play a game? To help you find the perfect game for your family, we’ve put together a list of activities you can add to your holiday festivities.
Discover HomeExchangeAnomia
The word "anomia" means trouble with word recall, and that’s what you’ll be experiencing once you dive into this game. This game comes with a deck of cards, with a category and a symbol on each one. During every turn, a player has to grab a card from a facedown deck and flip it over. If you or someone at your table has matching symbols with someone else’s card, you have to say something that belongs to the category written on their card before they do. Whoever says it first takes their opponent’s card. It sounds simple at first, but you’d be surprised at how difficult it is to remember words when under pressure!
Uno
Uno is a classic card game that can turn a calm family game night into a to-the-death match. Seriously, these cards have the power to start wars, but at least everyone will have fun. This wildly popular game relies on you trying to get rid of your entire hand of cards while using some of those cards to sabotage your opponents. It’s a great way to get everyone’s energy back up after Christmas dinner!
Heads Up… but make it Christmas
Most people know the hit game Heads Up, either from years of playing it with some notecards and tape, or from The Ellen Show, or from the app. The game works like this: A word is written on a note card and then taped to someone’s forehead, who is then given clues by others about what their card says, and try to guess what’s on their card. To add a holiday spin to this game, all of the cards have to have something Christmas-related on them. This game is a classic, but it’s a classic for a reason!
Home exchange for the holidaysGift wrapping race
If you want to make wrapping gifts more fun, have everyone try to wrap their presents as fast as possible. Set a timer, and get ready to wrap, tape, and put a bow on some presents qfaster than everyone else. Then declare the person who wrapped the most presents in the least amount of time and the person who wrapped the neatest as the winners.
Hallmark Christmas movie bingo
At this point, everyone knows the pattern of a Hallmark movie. In fact, it’s their predictability and familiarity that keeps their audience returning year after year. Why not break up the regularity of your yearly Christmas romcom movie marathon by making a Hallmark movie bingo board? You can use one of the many bingo board creation websites where you can input your favorite tropes: hunky lumberjack, a big-city professional goes back to their rural hometown for the holidays, snowball fight, and more!
Build a gingerbread house
Gingerbread men are delicious, but leaving them outside in the cold is cruel, especially around the holidays. Why not give them a place to stay this Christmas by building and decorating a gingerbread home? Plenty of stores have gingerbread house crafting kits that will get most of the tough baking out of the way so that you can focus on the best part: decorating! You can even try to recreate your own place or decorate them to look like homes that you’ve been to while home swapping.
Telestrations
If the game telephone was one of your favorites growing up, we recommend playing Telestrations at your upcoming holiday get-together. The way Telestrations works is that it's telephone, but with an illustrative twist: Instead of repeating what was said to them, players have to draw what their neighbor describes to them in a little dry-erase notepad. It's guaranteed to give everyone a good laugh as everyone reveals where their notepad started, and what hilarious drawing ended up on the final page!
Cursed white elephant gift swap
Have you heard of a white elephant or a Yankee swap? If you haven’t, it’s a great way of giving gifts without having to buy something specific for someone. Everyone brings a gift, then sits in a circle with the presents in the middle. One by one, they pick and unwrap a present, or they can "steal" other people's gifts. However, a cursed white elephant swap has one major difference: Everyone brings something horrible or ugly to exchange, like a scary doll, a really smelly perfume, or a half-eaten fruitcake. It’s a race to the bottom, but it’s guaranteed to end in laughs.
Learn about HomeExchangeWith these games in mind, your Christmas is going to get much more exciting! Just remember to keep the competition fun, the trash-talking to a minimum, and the spirit of the holidays in mind as you play.
