3 Fun Christmas Day Games the Whole Family Will Love
One of my favourite parts of Christmas Day isn’t just the food or the presents — it’s the laughter that comes from having everyone together.
Over the years, we’ve started adding games to our family Christmas celebrations, and they’ve become one of the highlights of the day. Once the meal is over and everyone is ready to relax, a game is such a fun way to get everyone away from the table and doing something together.
And when I say everyone, I really do mean everyone.
The Christmas Day games that work best in our family are the ones that cross generations, don’t have complicated rules and give everyone a chance to join in. Some require a little preparation beforehand, but once Christmas Day arrives, they’re ready to go.
When I’m choosing a game, I generally look for something that:
- works for a larger group
- is easy for everyone to understand
- doesn’t take too long to explain or set up on the day
- gets different generations playing together
- and, most importantly, is likely to result in plenty of laughter
These three Christmas Day games have certainly delivered on that last requirement!
Nerf Gun Shooting Gallery Christmas Game
The first game is probably one of the funniest we’ve played.
It does require a little preparation, and actually hitting the target isn’t quite as easy as you might imagine, but that turned out to be half the fun.
We made a large Christmas tree shooting gallery using disposable cups, with a prize number hidden inside each one. Players had to use a Nerf gun to shoot through the paper covering a cup to reveal their number.
What You’ll Need
- A piece of MDF
- Large disposable cups — I used 23
- Small numbered pieces of paper
- Christmas paper serviettes
- Rubber bands
- A Nerf gun and compatible foam darts
- A selection of small gifts or prizes
I painted our MDF black because I already had black paint at home, but you could easily paint yours red, green or another colour that works with your Christmas decorations.
We made ours quite large because we had a big family gathering and wanted everyone to end up with a gift.
How to Make the Christmas Shooting Gallery
Start by painting your board and allowing it to dry completely.
Arrange the disposable cups on the board in the shape of a Christmas tree and attach them with hot glue or small screws. We used screws because we made our board well ahead of Christmas and needed it to survive being moved and stored.
Place a numbered piece of paper inside each cup.
Next, cut your Christmas paper serviettes into quarters, place a piece over the opening of each cup and secure it with a rubber band.
One important little tip we discovered — don’t double the layers of serviette. The foam darts need to be able to puncture the paper, and making it too thick makes this much more difficult.
Once every cup is covered, your Christmas shooting gallery is ready to go.
How to Play
Give each person a turn with the Nerf gun to try to puncture one of the covered cups.
When someone successfully shoots through the paper, they take the numbered slip from inside the cup.
Continue until all the cups have been punctured and everyone has a number.
Then it’s time for the prizes.
The person holding number one chooses a gift first, followed by number two and so on until everyone has selected something from the prize table.
It’s a very simple idea, but add a Nerf gun, an audience and a table full of prizes and suddenly everyone becomes remarkably invested in the outcome!
Easy Prize Ideas for Christmas Day Games
You certainly don’t need to spend a fortune on prizes to make Christmas games fun.
I like to have a mixture of a few nicer prizes and plenty of smaller inexpensive ones. The fun is really in winning and choosing something from the prize table rather than how much the gift costs.
Some ideas we’ve used include:
- Christmas chocolates
- Scratchies
- Pens and notebooks
- Lip balm
- Small books
- Jigsaws
- Small Lego kits
- Christmas socks
- Mini games
- Skincare and beauty products
- Tea or coffee treats
One of my favourite tricks is to buy larger beauty or gift sets and separate the individual products to create several prizes. It’s an easy way to make your prize table look generous without spending a small fortune.
You can also start collecting little things throughout the year rather than buying everything in December.
The Right Left Christmas Game
Our next game is one we come back to again and again because it’s incredibly simple and always ends in complete chaos — in the best possible way.
It’s also a particularly good choice if you have lots of different ages at your Christmas celebration because absolutely everyone can participate.
What You’ll Need
All you need is:
- one person to read the story
- one wrapped gift for every guest
- a Left Right Christmas story
Have everyone sit reasonably close together, with each person holding one wrapped gift.
The designated reader begins reading the story aloud. Every time the word RIGHT is read, everyone passes the gift they’re holding to the person on their right. Whenever they hear LEFT, it gets passed to the left.
Whatever gift you’re holding when the story ends is yours to keep.
It sounds incredibly easy.
And it is — until the story gets going!
The faster the story is read, the funnier it becomes as gifts start moving in every direction and everyone tries to work out whether they’re supposed to be passing left or right.
Download Our Printable Right Left Christmas Story
There are plenty of Left Right Christmas stories available, but I’ve also added the one we use to the Christmas section of our Free Resource Library.
You can simply download and print it before Christmas, then tuck it away with your other game supplies ready for the day.
Wind-Up Christmas Character Racing Game
This one came about after I found some little wind-up Christmas characters online and immediately thought they would be hilarious to race.
I was right.
Tony designed a race track for them, which turned a few inexpensive wind-up characters into a full family Christmas tournament.
And, as often happens with our Christmas games, everyone became far more competitive than expected!
Setting Up Your Christmas Race
We had twelve players, so we divided everyone into three heats of four.
Each person randomly selected a wind-up Christmas character from a box, so no one knew which little racer they would end up with.
To begin each race:
- place the characters in the centre of the starting area
- wind them up
- hold them in position
- have someone call “Go!”
- release them all at once
And then watch the chaos unfold.
Some will head towards the finish line. Some will wander off course. And there’s usually at least one who appears to have absolutely no interest in participating in the race at all.
That’s half the fun.
The first two characters across the finish line progressed to the next round.
We continued with heats and finals until we eventually crowned our overall Christmas racing champion.
Adding Prizes to the Race
For our Christmas gathering, we had seven larger prizes and thirteen smaller prizes.
Winners were able to select from the larger prize collection, while the remaining players chose from the smaller gifts.
You could make this as simple or elaborate as you like. You don’t even need prizes if you’d prefer not to have them — although I have found that the introduction of a prize does tend to bring out everyone’s competitive streak!
I’ve also added our printable Christmas race track to the Free Resource Library if you’d like to recreate this game with your own family.
Prepare Your Christmas Games Before Christmas Day
One thing I definitely recommend is getting everything organised ahead of time.
Christmas Day already has enough moving parts without suddenly discovering that you haven’t wrapped the prizes or can’t remember where you put the rubber bands for the shooting gallery.
Choose your games ahead of time, make or print anything you need, buy your prizes and keep everything together in one box.
Then on Christmas Day, you can simply bring it out when everyone is ready to play.
It’s a small amount of preparation that makes the day itself so much easier.
Why Our Christmas Day Games Have Become Part of the Tradition
I think this is what I love most about adding games to Christmas.
Yes, we spend a lot of time thinking about the food, decorating the house, setting a beautiful Christmas table and choosing presents. I love all of those things too.
But ultimately, Christmas is about the people we’re sharing it with.
Games give everyone something to do together. They get people out of their usual little conversation groups, bring different generations together and create those completely ridiculous moments that somehow become family stories.
Some of our funniest Christmas memories have come from these silly games.
And nobody remembers whether everything went perfectly.
They remember who couldn’t hit a giant cup with a Nerf gun, whose wind-up Christmas character headed off in completely the wrong direction and who became far too competitive during the Right Left game.
To me, that’s part of the magic of Christmas.
So if you’re planning your celebrations this year, try adding one or two Christmas Day games to your plans. They don’t need to be complicated or expensive.
They just need to get everyone together and laughing.
You’ll find our printable Christmas race track and Right Left Christmas story in the Free Resource Library, ready to download for your own celebrations.
And if you’re starting to plan the rest of your Christmas celebrations, you’ll also find plenty of Christmas recipes, entertaining ideas and resources here on A Joyful Ordinary Life to help make hosting a little easier — so you have more time to enjoy the people you’re doing it all for.
