Christmas games for the whole family: from grandparents to five-year-olds

What works for every age

A Christmas game has a harder job than most. It has to hold a child who cannot read yet, a teenager who would rather be elsewhere and a grandparent who does not want to be rushed. Games that manage it tend to share a few things:

• Everyone plays at once. Turn-taking games leave most of the room watching. Simultaneous answers keep everyone in.
• Instinct beats knowledge. Trivia becomes a contest between the two people who read the most. Guessing, matching and spotting games level the field.
• Rounds are short. A round of a minute or two survives a toddler interruption or a trip to check the oven.
• Losing is funny, not embarrassing. A wild guess that is decades out gets a laugh; a wrong answer read out in a quiz can sting.

No-kit Christmas classics

These need nothing more than paper, a pen and a bowl or hat. Each one is described in a way that works with mixed ages.

• Charades. One person acts out a film, book, song or Christmas object without speaking, and their team guesses. For small children, swap titles for simple things to mime: a snowman, a reindeer, opening a present. Pair a child with an adult so nobody is stuck on stage alone.
• The hat game. Everyone writes a few names on slips (people, characters, family members) and they go in a hat. Over three rounds a team describes them in words, then in one word only, then in mime. The same names come back each round, so the youngest players know them by the end.
• Who am I? Stick a note with a name on everyone’s forehead. Players take turns asking yes-or-no questions to work out who they are. It works well round the table after lunch, because nobody has to stand up.
• Hum that carol. One person hums a carol or Christmas song, no words allowed, and everyone else races to name it. Grandparents usually do very well here.
• Present detective. Before presents are opened, everyone picks one parcel that is not theirs and guesses what is inside, with a reason. Check the guesses as the parcels are opened.

Phone games for mixed ages

Phones are in everyone’s pocket on Christmas Day anyway, so you might as well put them to work. FLUNG Party runs in the phone browser: one person hosts, everyone else taps a link or scans a QR code, types a name and joins. There is no app, no account and nothing to pay. A TV is optional; if you have one, open the big screen on it for the reveals.

The Party games are built for exactly this crowd. In SIZE SHOCK you guess how many of a small thing make a big one; in WEIGHT SHOCK, how many weigh the same. TIME SHOCK asks what year a real moment happened. HIVE MIND has no right answers at all: you score by giving the answer most of the room gives. Every guessing game scores by closeness, so a near miss still earns points and nobody needs to know the exact answer.

For a proper Christmas session, pick Game night when you host. You choose two to five games to play back to back, or tap Quick 2, Classic 3 or Epic 5 for a ready-made playlist. Everyone stays in the same room between games. Each game awards cups, 3 for first, 2 for second and 1 for third, and whoever holds the most cups at the end is crowned the Family Champion.

A few other features matter on the day:

• A practice round runs first by default and never counts, so a grandparent can learn the keypad without losing points.
• Family chat lets players send emoji and quick lines like “So close!” from their phones. The host can turn it off at any time.
• The next-game vote appears on the podium at the end of a game, so the room picks what to play next instead of one person deciding.
• Teams split a big family into two to four groups. In Huddle mode each team sees its own members’ answers and agrees one, which gets cousins talking.

The festive pack

If you want the questions themselves to feel like Christmas, the Christmas party games page has our festive pack: Christmas rounds for SIZE SHOCK, WEIGHT SHOCK and HIVE MIND, snowy scenes for SNEAKY SWAP, and festive clues for LETTERBLAZE. You choose Christmas when you host a single game. One thing to know: GAME NIGHT playlists use the classic questions for now, so for festive rounds, host single games with the Christmas pack rather than a playlist.

Grandparents and little ones

• Pair up the youngest. A child without a phone can share with a parent or grandparent. One phone, two heads, and the child presses LOCK IN.
• Use Gentle mode. The host can switch it on in the lobby, and it swaps every teasing caption for a neutral one.
• Try KID MODE in LETTERBLAZE. It gives three answers to choose from instead of typing, adds ten seconds to each clue and uses kid-friendly clues only.
• Use the TV for small screens. If a grandparent struggles with a small screen, open the TV view and let them follow the question there while they type on the phone.
• Remember the absent. Relatives in another house or country can join from the same link, with a video call on a laptop beside the TV. Our video call games guide has more ideas for that.

Planning Christmas Day

Timing does more for a Christmas game than the choice of game. A simple plan:

1. Morning: keep it light. Presents are the main event. Present detective fits here and needs no set-up.
2. After lunch: the main session. Everyone is in one room and nobody is cooking. Start with a no-kit warm-up while plates are cleared, then a GAME NIGHT of two or three phone games. If you watch the King’s Christmas broadcast at 3pm, plan around it.
3. Keep it to an hour. Stop while people still want one more. You can always play the rematch later.
4. Evening: the final. Save one game for later, when relatives who left early can join from home on the same kind of link.

Practical bits: charge phones before lunch, tell relatives a link is coming in the family chat, and decide on the TV view in advance so you are not hunting for a cable at the crucial moment. For the wider question of how to run a game night at any time of year, see our family game night ideas.