Family Christmas Games: 20 for Ages 3 to 80

Good family Christmas games are the ones a three-year-old and an eighty-year-old can play in the same round, with nothing to buy and nothing to charge. Here are 20, sorted by how much energy is left in the room: sofa games for after lunch, games for the cleared table, floor games for when the youngest start climbing the furniture, and garden games for Boxing Day.

Where a game says the oldest player is "anyone", we mean it.

What is a good family game to play at Christmas?

A good family game at Christmas has rules you can explain in one sentence and lets the youngest player win fairly. Luck, silliness or a job for each age does the levelling. It needs nothing from the shops, because by Christmas afternoon nobody is going out.

The other thing Christmas Day needs is movement. NHS guidance asks for at least three hours of moving about daily from 1 to 4 year olds, spread through the day, and an average of at least an hour of moderate or vigorous activity a day for 5 to 18 year olds, with less time spent sitting. A long lunch and a film won't manage that, which is why half of this list is on the floor or outside.

Which games work on the sofa after lunch?

For the hour when nobody can move. All five work with the plates still out.

1. Hum the carol

One player hums a carol or a Christmas song, no words allowed, and everyone else races to name it. Start with Jingle Bells for the three-year-old; the grandparents tend to win the old ones.

Youngest: 3. Oldest: anyone. Needs: nothing.

2. The laughing handkerchief

One player throws a napkin into the air. Everyone laughs as loudly as they can while it's falling and must stop dead the moment it lands. Anyone still laughing throws next.

Youngest: 3. Oldest: anyone. Needs: a napkin.

3. Cracker-joke punchlines

One reader gives the set-up of a cracker joke and stops. Everyone invents a better punchline before the real one is read out, and the table votes. The real one rarely wins.

Youngest: 5, or 4 with a grown-up whispering ideas. Oldest: anyone. Needs: the jokes from the crackers, or any joke book.

4. Wink murder

Everyone takes a folded slip: one says murderer, one says detective. The murderer kills by winking, and victims die as dramatically as the sofa allows. The detective has three guesses; under-sixes make good assistants.

Youngest: 6. Oldest: anyone who can keep a straight face. Needs: slips of paper.

5. The minister's cat

Go round the room describing the minister's cat, one letter at a time: an awful cat, a bouncy cat, a cheeky cat. Clap a slow beat; miss it and you're out. Vocabulary tips this one towards the grandparents.

Youngest: 7, or 6 with help. Oldest: anyone. Needs: nothing.

Which games work round the table?

Once the table's cleared and somebody has found a dice. These are the Christmas games for kids who've stopped eating the counters.

6. Beetle drive

Each player draws a beetle by rolling a dice: a 6 for the body, 5 for the head, 4 for each of six legs, 3 for each eye, 2 for each feeler and 1 for the tail. You need the body first and the head before the eyes or feelers. First complete beetle shouts "Beetle".

Youngest: 4, with someone reading the dice. Oldest: anyone. Needs: a dice, paper and pencils.

7. The chocolate game

A bar of chocolate sits on a plate beside a hat, scarf, gloves, a knife and a fork. Take turns to roll a dice. Roll a six, put everything on and eat the chocolate square by square with the knife and fork until somebody else rolls a six.

Youngest: 5, with a table knife and a grown-up beside them. Oldest: anyone. Needs: a dice, chocolate, winter clothes, cutlery.

8. Spoons

Spoons in the middle, one fewer than the players. Pass cards round, each hunting for four of a kind. Whoever gets four grabs a spoon, then everyone grabs. No spoon, you're out.

Youngest: 6, or younger playing in a pair. Oldest: anyone with quick hands. Needs: a pack of cards and some spoons.

9. Paper-plate portraits

Everyone holds a paper plate on their head and draws on it, unseen, as one player calls out: a snowman, a hat, a carrot nose, a robin on the hat. Then compare. Nobody can, so everyone is equal.

Youngest: 3. Oldest: anyone. Needs: paper plates, or paper on a hardback book, and pens.

10. The hat game

Everyone writes five names on slips: famous people, family members, Christmas characters. In pairs, describe them without saying the name, then in one word only, then in mime only. Same slips every round, so the mimes get funnier.

Youngest: 7, paired with a grown-up. Oldest: anyone. Needs: paper, a pen and a bowl.

Which games need the floor cleared?

For when the youngest start bouncing off the sofa. Move the new toys first (more on why below). Several double as Christmas party games for kids at a school or club party.

11. The living Christmas card

Each team secretly picks a Christmas scene, a snowman in the garden, a robin on a gate, the tree with a star on top, and holds it as a still picture for a slow count of ten while the others guess. A tree pose (14 on a Sun Salutation mat) makes the tree, and a star (3 on Freedom Flow) goes on top. A grandparent in the armchair makes a fine sleeping Father Christmas.

Youngest: 3. Oldest: anyone, seated in the picture. Needs: nothing, or a mat with numbered poses.

12. Dress the Christmas tree

One grown-up sits very still as the tree. Teams of children have two minutes to decorate them with whatever's lying around: paper hats, bows off the presents, scraps of wrapping paper. The other grown-ups judge. Keep ribbon away from anyone's neck.

Youngest: 3. Oldest: the tree can be any age. Needs: the debris from the presents.

13. Pass the orange

Two teams in two lines. Pass an orange from under one chin to the next with no hands. Drop it and it goes back to the start. Undignified for everybody, which is why it has lasted.

Youngest: 5. Oldest: anyone whose neck agrees. Needs: two oranges.

14. The present relay

Two teams in two lines, each with an empty present box. Pass it over the first head, under the next pair of legs, over, under, to the back. The player at the back sprints to the front and the box sets off again. First team back in its starting order wins.

Youngest: 4. Oldest: anyone who can stand, or pass from a chair at the end of the line. Needs: two empty boxes.

15. Fill the sleigh

Scrunch the used wrapping paper into snowballs. Each team has an empty present box for a sleigh, held on the lap of a grown-up sitting across the room. Throw from behind a line of cushions while the sleigh-holder leans to catch. When the paper runs out, the fuller sleigh wins, and the recycling is already boxed.

Youngest: 3, standing closer. Oldest: anyone, and the sleigh-holder never leaves the chair. Needs: the wrapping paper and two empty boxes.

Which games suit the garden on Boxing Day?

Coats on, before the light goes. Each of these works in a garden or a park.

16. Sprout boules

A leftover sprout is the jack; a satsuma each is your bowl. Roll underarm and try to finish closest to the sprout. A lawn, a path or a long hallway carpet all work.

Youngest: 3. Oldest: anyone, rolled from a garden chair if need be. Needs: one sprout and a satsuma per player.

17. Kick the can

Hide-and-seek with a twist. The seeker guards an empty tin while counting and searching. Anyone caught waits by the can, and any hider who sneaks back and kicks it frees everyone.

Youngest: 5. Oldest: whoever wants to guard the can. Needs: one empty tin, and a garden with corners.

18. Hare and hounds

The hares, a grown-up and a child, set off first and leave arrows made of sticks at every turn. The hounds follow ten minutes later. It turns a Boxing Day walk into a chase.

Youngest: 4, with the hounds. Oldest: a walking grandparent makes an excellent hare. Needs: sticks.

19. Tin can alley

Stack the rinsed tins from the Christmas cooking into a pyramid on a wall or garden table, and knock them down with rolled-up socks. The youngest stand closer. Tape over any sharp rims first.

Youngest: 3. Oldest: anyone. Needs: six or ten clean tins and a pair of socks.

20. Broom limbo

Two grown-ups hold a broom handle and everyone bends backwards to get under it, lower each round. Three-year-olds walk under upright, which is allowed. Anyone who'd rather not bend holds the broom.

Youngest: 3. Oldest: anyone, on the broom. Needs: a broom.

A Christmas afternoon, from pudding to teatime

Follow the energy in the room, not a timetable. As an illustration, for a three-year-old, two school-age cousins and two grandparents:

• After pudding: hum the carol and the laughing handkerchief, while the plates are still out.
• When the table's clear: beetle drive, then paper-plate portraits.
• When the three-year-old starts climbing the sofa: the living Christmas card with Grandma in the armchair, then fill the sleigh, which also clears the floor.
• After the little one is in bed: spoons, the hat game and wink murder for the rest.
• Boxing Day, before lunch: sprout boules and hare and hounds.

For a school hall, the present relay, broom limbo with a PE cane and fill the sleigh with scrap paper all work as Christmas PE games for a whole class, with the living Christmas card as the cool-down.

What should you clear away before the floor games?

The new toys, the packaging and anything with a battery, because by Christmas afternoon the floor is usually covered in small parts.

Swallowed button batteries and strong magnets are a hospital emergency for a small child, according to the government's product safety office (OPSS), and its toy-buying checklist asks that any button battery in a toy sits behind a screwed-down flap. That checklist also names loose ribbon on toys and costumes as a hazard for young children, hence the rule in game 12.

When someone would rather watch

Christmas is a bad day to insist. Give the watcher a job instead: scorekeeper, punchline judge, scene guesser, holder of the broom. Plenty of people who won't play will happily run the game, and a child who sits out two rounds and judges the third often comes back. And if a grandparent can't be there in person, our games to play on FaceTime bring them in from a phone propped on the mantelpiece.

Frequently asked questions

What are the top 10 family Christmas games?

For Christmas, our ten would be hum the carol, the laughing handkerchief, wink murder, beetle drive, the chocolate game, spoons, the hat game, the living Christmas card, pass the orange and kick the can. Between them they cover sitting, the table, the floor and the garden, and none needs anything you'd have to buy.

What games can a three-year-old and a grandparent play together?

Games where luck or silliness decides, or where the grandparent has a job that suits a chair. Beetle drive, paper-plate portraits and the laughing handkerchief level everyone. The living Christmas card, dress the Christmas tree and broom limbo give the grandparent the armchair, the sitting still or the holding, while the three-year-old does the moving.

What Christmas games need no equipment?

Hum the carol needs only voices, and wink murder needs a few slips of paper. The minister's cat and the living Christmas card need nothing at all. Most of the rest use what's already in the house on Christmas Day: a pack of cards, a dice, the wrapping paper, a broom, an empty tin.

What are silly family games for Christmas Day?

The laughing handkerchief, paper-plate portraits, pass the orange and the chocolate game are the four most likely to have someone crying with laughter. Dress the Christmas tree comes close, especially if the tree is a grandparent who has agreed to sit very still and say nothing.

More games for the rest of the holidays

These twenty are for one long afternoon with every generation in the room. For the days either side, see our Christmas activities for kids, which cover Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, and our Twixmas activities for the quiet days after Boxing Day. Ten children at a party need a different set again, and those are in our indoor party games for kids. Simon says has a Reindeer says round of its own, and once January arrives, a weekly family game night keeps the habit going.

If the living Christmas card becomes the one they ask for again, a full-length kids' yoga mat has room for a grown-up at 183 x 61 cm, with fifteen numbered poses for ages 3 to 8: the tree is on Sun Salutation and the star on Freedom Flow.

Sources

• NHS: Physical activity guidelines for children (under 5 years)
• NHS: Physical activity guidelines for children and young people
• GOV.UK, Office for Product Safety and Standards: Hidden danger in your home, button batteries and powerful magnets
• GOV.UK, Office for Product Safety and Standards: Buy toys safely this Christmas