Christmas Eve Games
You don't often think to play games on Christmas Eve, but playing a game or two
can be a lot of fun.
One fun game is ideally suited for anxious children, but could also be for
adults, if you want to add some fun for gift giving. For children, this is a way
to make that "open one gift on Christmas Eve" rule a little more exciting and
make it last a little longer.
You create a hunt with clues, so the children have to follow the clues to find
their gift. Instead of the gift being under the tree, for example, you might put
it somewhere else, but the children will follow clues to find it. For this game,
you can use anything to write your clues on. You could use Christmas cards in
their envelopes that you had extras of, you might cut out Christmas tree shapes
for this, or you might want to use ornaments.
Whichever method you choose, write a clue on each of your items and leave those
around the house. You start by handing each child the first clue. It might say,
"you sleep here every night" and the children will run to their beds. On their
pillow you have placed another clue that might say, "mom's eggs taste better
with this" and the children head to the spice cabinet, where they find another
clue on the salt. The final clue (and depending on the ages of your children and
their tolerance, you might have only 5 clues for this game, or many more) will
be the gift itself. To make it extra fun, have the gift be under the tree. Your
children won't see that coming!
If you have a large gathering on Christmas Eve, try a circle game. Have everyone
get in a circle and the first person will start with, "in my Christmas stocking
there is an apple" and the next person will add, "in my Christmas stocking there
is an apple and a boot". Each person will continue on, remembering the previous
items and the adding one of their own, and all in alphabetical order. If you
miss an item, you're out of the game and the winner is the person who
successfully remembers all the stocking items over and over again each time they
have to recite the items and add to the list.
Looking for a little physical activity on Christmas Eve? How about a rousing
game of musical chairs using Christmas music? This one can be particularly fun
if you use upbeat and well-known Christmas music. Use songs everyone knows and
require they sing along and dance while they run around the chairs. This adds a
fun element because you are likely to have at least one person who gets so
caught up in the music and dancing they don't realize the music has stopped.
This game is played like any traditional game of musical chairs with the loser
being the one who doesn't get a chair when the music stops.
Since the big event on Christmas Eve is Santa's arrival, play a game of "where's
Santa"? In this game, everyone sits in a circle and one person is chosen to be
Rudolph. That person leaves the room for a minute. A Santa is chosen among those
left in the room. Rudolph returns and begins hunting for Santa. Rudolph should
stand in the center of the circle and try to figure out which person is Santa.
Santa, meanwhile, winks at other people in the circle. If someone gets winked
at, they yell, "ho ho ho".
Once Rudolph figures out where Santa is, another Rudolph and another Santa are
chosen and the game continues.
By Christmas Eve, your Christmas cards have been on display for a few weeks, so
maybe it's time to play a game with them. Have someone set up a laundry basket,
or a gift box a few feet away (the distance depends on the age of your players
and ability). Have them try to toss the cards into the box or basket. This
sounds easy, but different cards of different weights and styles will react
differently and can be harder than expected to get into the box or basket.