Reindeer Games for All Ages

Christmas Day is fast approaching and once the halls have been decked and the mountain of baking built, our house turns their attention towards planning holiday entertainment. It’s always a challenge to find something that will work for young and old and doesn’t feel so “last Christmas”.

If you are looking for inspiration, here are a few games our family has enjoyed over the years:

Tissue Box Jingle

This game is great to get everyone moving and oh those moves are glorious.   

• Cut a slit in each side of an empty facial tissue box and thread a long ribbon through so you can wear the box around your waste like a fanny pack. 
• Position so the box is behind you and leave the mouth of the box exposed. Place bells inside the tissue box and turn up the tunes. 
• Each person gets 30 seconds to dance their hearts and bells out. The person with the most bells out is the winner. Dance off in case of a tie.

Candy Cane Hunt

This one’s great for families with lots of little ones.

• Hide candy canes around the house or outside if it’s nice and set the kids loose with a stocking or shopping bag to collect them. The winner is the kid who finds the most, or if you want to even the haul, the kid who returns a certain number in the shortest time.

Crafty Tribute

This works good with a large group. 

• Visit your local craft store and gather a selection of craft supplies – pompoms, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, construction paper, googly eyes – most anything will do and the more the merrier.
• Divide your group into teams and give them a selection of supplies and a theme – they could create a monument to the year that was or will be ahead. We did this the year of Saskatchewan’s centennial. 
• Each team gives a walk through of their creation and the game creator chooses a winner if so desired.

Christmas Charades

Tried and true, this game can be as short or easy as you need it to be. 

• Write down a selection of Christmas words and phrases on pieces of paper and put them in a toque. 
• Divide your group into two teams. Teams take turns picking from the toque and trying to silently act out the phrases they draw to their individual teams within a time limit. 
• The team with the most correct guesses at the end wins.

Wearable Wrap-Up

A game you can get really into because participants look more and more ridiculous as it goes on.

• Visit your local dollar store to collect a selection of jewelry, hair clips, socks, make-up and other small, odd items as desired.
• Gradually wrap the items in one big ball of plastic wrap.
• Like musical chairs, play music as members of the group pass the ball around. When the music stops, the person holding the ball unwraps the plastic as quickly as possible and prizes fall out. The person must wear each prize in some way for the game’s duration or they’ll be disqualified.
• The person adorned with the most items when the ball is completely unwrapped wins.

Paper Plate Picasso

Everyone’s an artist in this easy activity.

• Sketch several simple Christmas drawings on individual pieces of white paper. A Christmas tree, present, snowman and Santa Claus worked well for us.
• Pass out white paper plates and markers to each member of the group.
• Hold up one drawing at a time and have participants place the plate on the very top of their head and use the marker to draw the shape.
• Judge each work of art for accuracy and artistic merit.

Christmas Olympics

For the competitive family, create a series of small individual challenges and a game board to track the leaders throughout the day. Track points for any of the games above or add a few more like:

• Players fully extend their arms to their sides, shoulder height, palms up. The game organizer places a piece of wrapping paper on each palm and starts the timer. The last person who drops their arms wins. Harder than you think!
• Find printable Christmas word games on the internet such as Guess the Christmas Carol by emojis or Christmas Word scramble. First one to complete gets a point.

If all this sounds like much more effort than you’re up for, good old fashioned board games can come to the rescue. Pick one or more up at your local game shop and call it done!

What do you do for family togetherness while the turkey cooks? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter!

-Nova Alberts is a Marketing Manager on the Brand and Platform team at Directwest